Instagram Teen Accounts Feature Announced: What is it?

Instagram has announced a new feature called Instagram Teen Accounts, a new experience for teens, guided by parents. Teen Accounts come with built-in protections designed to safeguard younger users by controlling who can contact them and the type of content they encounter. These accounts also offer teens new opportunities to explore their interests in a safe environment. The platform will automatically assign eligible users to Teen Accounts.

Instagram says that teens under 16 years of age will need parental consent to make any changes that would reduce the level of protection or relax the preset restrictions. This ensures that younger users remain in a more secure online space unless explicitly allowed otherwise by a parent or guardian.

Instagram Teen Accounts are designed to better support parents, and give them peace of mind that their teens are safe with the right protections in place. Teens will also get access to a new feature, made just for them, that lets them select topics they want to see more of in Explore and their recommendations so they can focus on the fun, positive content they love.

The following protections are turned on automatically, and parents decide if teens under 16 can change any of these settings to be less strict:

• Sleep mode enabled: Sleep mode will be turned on between 10 PM and 7 AM, which will mute notifications overnight and send auto-replies to DMs. 
• Private accounts: With default private accounts, teens need to accept new followers and people who don’t follow them can’t see their content or interact with them. This applies to all teens under 16 (including those already on Instagram and those signing up) and teens under 18 when they sign up for the app.
• Messaging restrictions: Teens will be placed in the strictest Messaging settings, so they can only be messaged by people they follow or are already connected to. 
• Sensitive content restrictions: Teens will automatically be placed into the most restrictive setting of our sensitive content control, which limits the type of sensitive content (such as content that shows people fighting or promotes cosmetic procedures) teens see in places like Explore and Reels. 
• Limited interactions: Teens can only be tagged or mentioned by people they follow. We’ll also automatically turn on the most restrictive version of our anti-bullying feature, Hidden Words, so that offensive words and phrases will be filtered out of teens’ comments and DM requests. 
• Time limit reminders: Teens will get notifications telling them to leave the App after 60 minutes each day. 

Teens under 16 will need their parent’s permission to use less protective settings. To get permission, teens will need to set up parental supervision on Instagram. If parents want more oversight over their older teen’s (16+) experiences, they simply have to turn on parental supervision. Then, they can approve any changes to these settings, irrespective of their teen’s age.

Read More: Comments on Instagram Stories Are Now Possible

Once supervision is established, parents can approve and deny their teens’ requests to change settings or allow teens to manage their settings themselves. Soon, parents will also be able to change these settings directly to be more protective.

Instagram confirms that it will start placing teens who sign up for Instagram into Teen Accounts, and it will notify teens already using Instagram about these changes as it will begin moving them into Teen Accounts next week. 

Instagram plans to place teens into Teen Accounts within 60 days in the US, UK, Canada and Australia, and to start placing them in Teen Accounts in the European Union later this year. Teens around the world will start to get Teen Accounts in January. It will also bring Teen Accounts to other Meta platforms next year.

Additions to Supervision feature

There are new updates for the existing Supervision feature in Instagram for parents, including;

• Get insights into who teens are chatting with: While parents can’t read their teen’s messages, now they will be able to see who their teen has messaged in the past seven days.
• Set total daily time limits for teens’ Instagram usage: Parents can decide how much time their teen can spend on Instagram each day. Once a teen hits that limit, they’ll no longer be able to access the app. 
• Block teens from using Instagram for specific time periods: Parents can choose to block their teens from using Instagram at night, or specific time periods, with one easy button.
• See topics your teen is looking at: Parents can view the age-appropriate topics their teen has chosen to see content from, based on their interests.