Social media is proven to be harmful to what we see and interact with; fights, vape ads, sexual content, sensitive content, drug posts and other familiar topics. Instagram is one of the many platforms that are testing the waters by setting up teen profile accounts. Teens from the United States, Canada, Britian, and Australia will see changes with their account this coming January.
Instagram is changing for the better through limiting sensitive content that minors should not interact with such as nudity and self-harm. They are even preventing direct messages from people they do not follow, who could have the chance of being dangerous.
“I believe it’s a good thing,” senior Natali Faraj said. “It’s good to interact with your friends posts whether its sports, clubs and other things without interacting with negativity.”
While limiting sensitive content, Instagram is also making existing teen accounts have restrictions on messages. Messages start at 10:00 p.m. and stop at 7:00 a.m. While they are turned on for all teens, 16 and 17-year-olds will be able to turn them off while kids under 16 will need their parents’ permission to turn them off.
“I think that when you’re 16 and 17 you should have your own control over what you want to do.” senior Brooke Hanson said.
Most teens have an addiction to social media causing negative effects on their brains. 95% of people aged 16 to 24 years old own a smartphone and check it on average every 12 minutes. Instagram wants to bring an end to harsh media consumption by limited interaction. If the teenager reaches 60 minutes of interacting & scrolling, the parent who can see their profile will get notified.
“I don’t think it would help teenagers.” senior Abigail Skowronek said, “I mean it might help them with not being on Instagram as much, but there are still other platforms, TikTok being one of them. They might not be as addictive on Instagram, but they will find another platform.”
There is also going to be a Meta security system implemented to make it harder to lie about your age. Submitting video selfies is one of the various ways they are conducting age-estimation through face recognition. This is to eliminate fake adult accounts.
“It could work,” senior McKenna Daniel said, “they can put you in the right age range for teens and you won’t get catfished.”
Instagram is one of the many platforms that are gaining lawsuits, mainly from concerned parents. The app wants to ensure the safety of teenagers and help parents feel safer knowing their children are having a positive media intake.
Parents can alter settings within their child’s account. There are tools that enable daily time limits, using Instagram for certain periods of time and check recent messages.
Overall, Instagram implementing these new features is a good step towards having teenagers cut back on media usage, interacting with harmful posts, and hopes to stop parental worries.
