Instagram Launches Family Center so Parents Can Supervise Their Children on The Social Network

Instagram announced that it is now making a global supervision tool available to parents on the social network, called Family Center. It allows those responsible to have greater control over what the teenager does on the social network and even set a daily time limit to use the app.

The tool was already available in the United States and now it arrives in other countries, such as Brazil. Bringing another way to try to ensure a healthier use of the platform for young people.

Family Center allows you to control the time of young people on the network

With the Family Center, parents and guardians of their teenager will be able to configure some tools that help to supervise and control a little better the experience of young people on Instagram.

“It is important that the teenager has privacy to explore the world around him and his identity. This has always been something important for us. It is not to control, but to guide. We want it to spark conversations in the family.”

Among these tools are the ability to see how much time young people spend on the social network per day, limit this time and set specific times of the day or week where the app cannot be used. This tool is important to prevent young people from accessing Instagram when they are at school, for example. Or even after bedtime or early in the morning.

When this happens, the teen receives a message about his daily limit. When there’s 10 minutes to go, Instagram lets you know. And when the time is up, the app is blocked.

The Family Center also sends a notification to parents when the young person reports an account or post. Showing which post was published and the type of content they are reporting on the network. It is also possible to keep an eye on which profiles the teenager follows on the platform.

An improvement of the tool is that now it is the parents themselves who send the invitation to activate the supervision tool. Since before it was only possible to send from the teenager’s device. But even after sending the invitation, the teenager in question still needs to accept.

More control for young people on Instagram

According to the platform, this Family Center is just “the first step of a long-term journey to develop intuitive supervision tools, with the help of experts, teens and parents”. They also announced that, soon, the idea is for the Family Center to allow control over all Meta products, not just Instagram.

In addition to the option to control the social network, the Center also offers interesting content for parents and guardians in the education center. There, they will be able to find some resources and articles from experts such as videos and tips to help deal with teenagers. Showing them the correct way to talk to them about the internet and social networks, for example.

“Together with leading researchers, nonprofits and trusted experts, we are developing resources that offer parents more support to guide their teen's online experience.”

Parents will also have access to tutorials to learn how to use the new tool. As well as learn about other supervision tools that are already available on the platform today.

Availability and how to access

The tool started to be made available yesterday (15) and should soon reach everyone. So keep Instagram always up to date. To send the supervision invitation, simply open the application, access the menu located in the upper right corner, choose Settings > Supervision > Create invitation and share the link with the teenager. He has 48 hours to accept.

You can also create the invitation from this link.

Remembering that Meta already has other tools to try to protect young people on the platform. Such as making all accounts of under 16s private automatically, restricting some direct messages and limiting ads to under 18s.