On September 17, Meta announced the roll-out of Instagram Teen Accounts, which have “built-in protections that limit who can contact them and the content they see,” Meta shared in a blog post. The sweeping update will automatically place teens into Teen Accounts, and those under 16 will then require a parent’s permission to change any privacy and restriction settings.
Meta plainly outlined the reason behind the major update to the app, citing parental fears about teens encountering “unsafe or inappropriate experiences” while scrolling through content on Instagram. “We developed Teen Accounts with parents and teens in mind. The new Teen Account protections are designed to address parents’ biggest concerns, including who their teens are talking to online, the content they’re seeing and whether their time is being well spent,” the blog post said.
“Everyone under 18, creators included, will be put into teen accounts,” Naomi Gleit, head of product at Meta, told NBC News. “They can remain public if their parent is involved and gives them permission and is supervising the account. But these are pretty big changes that we need to get right.”
Meta has “gotten a lot of feedback from parents, mostly about a few things,” Gleit said. “One, it can be simpler and easier to use, and so that’s one of the goals of this launch,” she said. “Two, there’s some inconsistencies in the current settings that we do have. ... And then the third thing is really just wanting to have more control and tools to help their teen online.”
But beyond parental fears, many have focused on social media's impact on teen mental health in recent years. In 2021, a whistleblower and troves of leaked documents revealed that Facebook (which then changed its name to Meta, the company that owns Instagram) knew about their app's negative mental health impacts to teens.
While there’s much to be seen in terms of how these changes will actually work, and how effective they’ll be at protecting young people’s privacy online, for now, proposed changes seem extensive for both teens and parents alike. So what’s in the update and how will these Teen Accounts actually work? Here’s everything you need to know:
Instagram Teen Accounts will be set to private by default, and teen users will need to accept new followers individually. Just like with the regular private account setting, people who don’t follow you, can’t see your content or interact with you. Teens under 16 will need parental permission to switch this privacy setting. This comes along with “the strictest messaging settings," that limit messaging by people you follow or are already mutuals with.
While the new accounts come with the option to influence your algorithm by directly picking what you want to see more of, they also have the most restrictive sensitive content control. Meta notes that all sensitive content on the Explore page and in Reels will be limited, including things like “content that shows people fighting or promotes cosmetic procedures.” And because we all get lost doom scrolling, the app will remind you to log off after 60 minutes each day, so you can go outside and touch some grass. Between 10 PM and 7 AM, notifications will be muted and your DMs will have auto-replies.
If you're under 16, yes, unless your parents opt you out. Instagram users under age 16 need their parent's permission to use less protective settings, according to Meta, which requires them to set up a parental supervision Instagram account. Once that account is active, parents can approve or deny your request to change these settings. If you're 16 or over, your parent can still set up a supervision account, but it's not necessary to change some of these restrictions.
Teen Accounts also allow your parents to set limits on how much time you can spend on the app, the see who you've messaged in the last week (crucially, though, not the content of your messages), and to see what topics you're looking at.
They know you might be tempted to lie about your age to start a new account with an over-age birthday, so they’re using AI to “proactively find these teens and place them in the same protections offered by Teen Account settings.” Tests for these changes will start early next year.
From now on, teens who sign up for Instagram will be automatically enrolled into Teen Accounts. Teens already using Instagram can expect to see these changes on a rolling basis starting next week in the US, UK, Canada and Australia. Teens in the European Union will be enrolled later this year, and global under-18s will get teen accounts in January.
