An Update – Social Media
Dear Parents
We write to bring you some important updates about the current and emerging changes in the world of social media. It was not too long ago that I read and subsequently wrote a short review of The Anxious Generation – How the great rewiring of childhood is causing an epidemic of mental illness. One of the major recommendations of the American author, Jonathan Haidt, was to introduce increased restrictions on the use of social media by young people. Indeed, he advocates for a ban for those under the age of 16. You may have also observed the current media coverage of our Prime Minister’s pledge to thoughtfully investigate and potentially introduce legislation in Australia that will restrict social media to young people. While the specific details of this are still emerging, as are the complex practicalities, we wanted to inform you of recent changes to the social media platform Instagram (owned by Meta). As many of you may know, Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms worldwide for teens and young people.
There have been some significant updates to Instagram in the past weeks aimed at enhancing the safety and experience of teens using their platform. These updates are designed to provide better protection for younger users and provide some control via administrative access for their parents. If your son has an Instagram account, these changes will be automatically applied to their accounts in the coming weeks.
A summary of the changes can be found below.
- Teen Accounts: All users under 18 will now be placed into Teen Accounts, with built-in protections.
- Private Accounts by Default: Accounts for users under 16 will automatically be set to private, requiring them to approve new followers.
- Messaging Restrictions: Teens can only receive messages from people they follow or are already connected to.
- Sensitive Content Control: Teens will be placed in the most restrictive setting for sensitive content, limiting exposure to potentially harmful material.
- Parental Permissions: Teens under 16 need parental permission to change these profile settings. When a teen account is linked to an adult’s account, the adult will have visibility over who the teen is messaging (but not the contents of these messages).
- Time Management Features: Notifications will alert teens if they spend more than 60 minutes on the app, and a “sleep mode” will disable notifications from 10 pm to 7 am.
Since Instagram’s inception, these changes have been the most significant update to accounts regarding protecting underage users. However, they are not foolproof and only go some way to addressing some of the issues brought on by social media. Teens can easily dismiss notifications alerting them to their screen usage and disabling notifications after 10pm does not prohibit their usage at this time. While Instagram has implemented several tools to prevent teens from circumventing these rules, including age verification, even Meta acknowledges that some users will inevitably find ways around the restrictions.
We always encourage parents to be proactive in monitoring and managing their teenager’s use of social media and have regular conversations at home about their engagement with these platforms. Instagram also offers Supervised Accounts, which provide parents a greater level of visibility over their teen’s usage, including how much time they spend on the app, who they follow, and their privacy settings. It also allows parents to set time limits for use and set up sleep modes to prevent access to Instagram at certain times of the day.
For more detailed information on Teen Accounts and Supervised Accounts, please visit the links below.
Teen Accounts: Protections for Teens, Peace of Mind for Parents (instagram.com)
About supervision on Instagram | Instagram Help Center
Mr Stuart McCormack
Head of Students
Mrs Amanda Pfeffer
Head of Digital Learning