Instagram introduced the “Center for Families”, a new space for parents and guardians to access monitoring tools and resources developed by renowned experts.
The idea is that in this new place, adults in charge can find resources to communicate with their teens about their experience on Instagram. This is the first step in a long-term journey to develop tools with feedback from experts, teens, and parents.
For now Instagram it is the first app where the tool is launching, and only in the US. It is expected that it will reach other countries by the end of the year, although there is no precise launch date.
The Center for Families offers an educational space where parents and guardians can access resources and materials from experts, including videos and tips on how to talk to teens about social media. Parents will also be able to watch tutorials on how to use the new monitoring tools, which will be available on the social network starting today.
“We work closely with groups like Connect Safely, Net Family News, and The Jed Foundation to develop these resources, and we will continue to add new information to the Center for Families education hub over time,” the official blog highlights.
Available resources allow parents and guardians to:
1. See how long spend your children on Instagram and set time limits.
2. Receive notifications when young people share that have reported an account on the platform.
3. View and receive updates on who do your kids follow on Instagram as well as the accounts that follow them.
For now, teens will need to enable supervision in the mobile app. In June, an option will be added for parents to enable supervision for the mobile application and also for it to be available on desktop computers. Regardless, teens will need to approve the request for parental or guardian supervision when requested.
Additional features will be added in the coming monthsincluding the ability for parents to set the times when teens can use Instagram and the ability for more than one parent to monitor the account.
Other news
the plans of Instagram to look like TikTok they go beyond prioritizing videos over image posts. The social network seems to be testing a new way of viewing Stories, clearly inspired by the app ByteDancewhich allows vertical scrolling and skips carousel animations to the side.
Currently, users have two ways to scroll through Instagram Stories. On the one hand, at touch the edge of the screen, an action also allows viewing the different publications shared by the user. Otherwise, scrolling left (to go to the next account) or to the right (to go back).
With the new preview, the swipe to move to the next account will be done vertically. Obviously, if you touch the borders to see the rest of the posts from the same user, it will still be an Instagram function.
Currently, the new way to view Instagram stories is only available to certain users in Turkey, since it is an experiment.
In fact, the app has been working on the feature for a year, and it’s one more trick to compete with TikTok. The global launch has not yet been confirmed.
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