Instagram Changes for Teens: What Happens to Under 16s

App time limits, message restrictions, offensive word and phrase filters. Instagram is rolling out a series of new settings to make the social network a safer place for minors. Meta Announces Teen Accounts on Instagram: “A new experience for teenagers, led by their parents.”

Teen accounts, the group explains, “have built-in protection settings that limit who can contact teens and the content they can see.” Teen accounts around the world will change by January. Teens in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia will be the first to make the change, with their accounts set to transition within 60 days. Meta will then transition to the European Union later this year.

What changes?

Who do teens talk to on social media? How much time do they spend on Instagram? What content do they watch? Instagram’s new settings are designed to address parents’ biggest concerns about their kids’ online lives. Once a teen account is activated, A series of restrictions will be automatically set for children under 16 and only parents will be able to choose whether to modify them to make them less rigid.

We start with account privacy. Profiles of minors under 16 will be private by default: teenagers will have to accept new followers and only those who follow them will be able to see their content and interact with them. The same goes for private messages, which have become limited: Teens will only be able to receive messages from people they follow or are already in contact with. Interactions will also be limited: Teens can only be tagged and mentioned by people they follow; in addition, comments and requests for private messages containing offensive words or phrases.

The ‘Search’ and ‘Reels’ sections will be restricted: teenagers will automatically be placed in the most restrictive content control settings that limit sensitive content. Kids will receive notifications inviting them to exit the app after 60 minutes of daily use, and in addition, the Automatic app sleep mode between 10pm and 7amby turning off notifications and sending automatic replies to messages in Direct.