Instagram, which is owned by Meta, has launched the Family Center in an effort to address parents’ and guardians’ concerns about their child’s safety and privacy.
For those concerned about teen safety on the app, the Family Center is a one-stop shop with teen safety tools such as parental monitoring and educational resources.
The site also includes a specially designed educational hub with Instagram-specific safety explanations, conversation guidelines for guardians to discuss digital safety and wellness, and external resources from partner organizations such as the Trevor Project and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
Features
From a single dashboard, Family Center enables parents to closely monitor their child’s account activity. The dashboard, on the other hand, provides information on profiles to which you have been granted access.
Guardians can also track how long supervised accounts have been active on the app, set time limits, and see who follows and frequently interacts with the account holder.
They can also receive alerts from users whenever another account or post that appears in their feeds is reported.
How to Enable
This new feature was first announced in December. Although teens must approve supervision within the settings on their own accounts for the time being, the platform is working to introduce a way for parents to set up supervision outside of an account’s settings in the near future.
When an account’s owner reaches the age of 18, however, supervision is automatically removed.
Instagram hopes that the Family Center’s safety tools, particularly educational resources about creating healthy digital boundaries and habits, will provide users with a healthier and safer internet experience.
Future plans for the company include allowing parents and guardians to use the Family Center tools across all Meta-owned platforms, as well as the addition of even more safety monitoring tools and the rollout of the same safety features to Quest VR in the coming months.
To read our blog on “Instagram is shutting down standalone apps Boomerang and Hyperlapse,” click here.
