Meta introduces ‘safer’ Instagram for teens with Teen Accounts, expected in SA in 2025

Meta has made a bold move aimed at enhancing safety for teenagers online and giving parents some peace of mind, by introducing Instagram “Teens Accounts”.

Every parent can relate to wanting to keep their children off social media apps until they are much older, however social media plays a significant role in the lives of teenagers especially.

The new feature is designed specifically for younger users, and provides them with a new tailored experience that prioritises safety, privacy, and age-appropriate content.

“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”, explains Meta.

A teen account will have built-in protections that are turned on automatically. These are:

Private accounts

Teen accounts will be automatically private, meaning that people whose follow is not accepted and those who don’t follow them can’t see their content or interact with them.

Messaging restrictions

Direct Messages (DMs) on a Teen Account are not open to everyone. The default messaging settings will only allow receipt of messages from people they follow.

Sensitive content restrictions

A teen account will automatically be placed into the most restrictive sensitive content control setting, which limits the type of sensitive content that is seen on Reels and Explore.

Limited interactions

Teen accounts can only be tagged or mentioned by people they follow, while the most restrictive version of Instagram’s anti-bullying feature, ‘Hidden Words’, will also be enabled, so that offensive words and phrases will be automatically filtered out of comments and DM requests.

There will also be a default time limit reminder that tells the teenage user to leave the app after 60 minutes each day, as well as a sleep mode feature that silences notifications between 10PM and 7AM.

A Teen Account will also get a new feature, made just for teens, that lets them select topics they want to see more of in Explore and recommendations so they can focus on more fun, positive content.

Teens under 16 who wish to change their protective settings will need to set up parental supervision on Instagram and get their parents’ permission.

Through parental supervision, parents can approve and deny their kids’ requests to change settings or allow the teen to manage their settings themselves.

Meta expresses that they intend to make it possible for parents to change these settings directly, to be more protective, in future.

Additionally, along with the supervision feature, Meta will add ways for parents to see who their teen has messaged in the last 7 days, but not the content of the messages.

Parents can also set daily time limits for their teens’ accounts, and can even choose to block their teens from using Instagram at night, or specific time periods, with one easy button.

Meta plans to place teens into Teen Accounts within 60 days in the US, UK, Canada and Australia, and then to the European Union later this year. Globally, the feature will be made available in January.

“We’ll also bring Teen Accounts to other Meta platforms next year,” Meta concludes.

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