free meditation
hero image emotional wellbeing

This episode is a must listen for parents and is packed with practical advice on Teen Accounts and how to have empowering conversations with your teens about their digital lives. My guest is Tara Hopkins, the Global Director of Policy at Instagram.

  • Instagram Teen Accounts—now expanding to Facebook and Messenger—are designed to give parents peace of mind that their teens are safer with the right protections in place. Learn more about Instagram Teen Accounts here.
  • Support your family’s online experience with expert guidance and tools from Meta’s Family Center. Explore resources today, including Meta’s Screen Smart Program, at Meta’s Family Center.
dear gabby #255 Apr 11, 2025 emotional wellbeing

how to keep your teens safe on instagram

[00:00:00] The following podcast is a dear media production.

Hey there. Welcome to Dear Gabby. I'm your host Gabby Bernstein, and if you landed here, it is absolutely no accident. It means that you're ready to feel good and manifest a life beyond your wildest dreams. Let's get started.

In this special episode, we're gonna address something that's a huge issue for so many people these days. So many of our parents out there, including parents like myself, with even a 6-year-old, this is something that's top of mind as I prepare my child for the internet and here we are. The question that's top of mind for folks right now is how do I help my teen use Instagram safely?

And you know, I've had an Instagram account since the very beginning, like most of us listening, and it has been such a huge resource for me in carrying my message and carrying a positive message on the internet, being a teacher, spreading something really, really high vibe through Instagram.

You know, listen, my, my [00:01:00] kid's only six years old, so navigating social media with him is just, it's a few years away. We've got some time here more than a few years away, but it's still something I've really been thinking about a lot because I see how he's already kind of attuned to what's happening on social media, and so how can I help him learn how to use this platform safely?

And how can you help your teens write. Now, and this is a huge, huge question. Another big question is, how can you guide your children to create positive connections on Instagram while maintaining safety and wellbeing? And joining me to help answer the question is Tara Hopkins, who is the Global Director of Policy at Instagram.

Tara is amazing. Her background is in child protection and human rights, and she is a mother of two teenage children. And Instagram announced teen accounts in 2024 to support parents and teens. These teen accounts have built in protections which limit, who can contact teens and the content that they see.

I'm first of all, so thrilled to be able to [00:02:00] share this content with you and share this message with you because Instagram is showing up and it's a place that's gonna be a lot safer for our kids. And I have a lot of questions for Tara. Just. So many questions about teen accounts, how to keep our kids safe, how to speak to our kids.

Plus we're gonna be sharing some ways that you can have positive and empowering conversations with your teens about their digital lives and how to communicate with them in a way that allows them to feel respected and honored and keep them safe. So let's dive into the episode. This is gonna really, really be a meaningful one for you.

I wanna just start, Tara, by just saying thank you. Just saying thank you to you, to meta for having this so highly on your radar for, for caring for our children, for, for really being 10 steps ahead beyond a lot of other social networks and really caring for our children because. As a mother of a 6-year-old [00:03:00] who has a lot of boundaries and bumpers around his, he obviously doesn't have social media right now, but I've already got quite a few boundaries and bumpers and rules around no gaming and you know, we're not gonna do any of that for a long time.

God, I hope I can push it off forever. There's. A clear and obvious obsession with children with regard to social media. 'cause when my son, I have kept off o off Instagram completely, but the second that he sees me like, and he knows that I'm posting something, he tries to inject himself. Into the image, into the video, right?

Yeah. Like that, that desire to to be be all over the internet is like a really immediate thing. And so it's gonna happen. Yeah. It's natural. It's where these children are going. It's the, it's the generation that they're growing up in and it's the future. So we have to be prepared and we have to have. The support from the, from the networks as well.

So I'm just really happy you're here. Oh, well, look, thank you for saying that and for, for recognizing it because we've spent a long, long time [00:04:00] thinking about these issues. I mean, more than, more than a decade I've been in Instagram for, I. Six years for well over a decade and, and met longer than that have, we've been thinking about these things and, and as you say, it, it is really critical.

I think the difference is, is that our children are my mom as well, and I've got a 12-year-old and a 15-year-old, and they are, they're digital natives. In fact, your son is gonna be even more of a digital native because this is just how they're growing up. And, and someone said to me the other day, you know, even when they're toddlers, like on the, on the floor of the kitchen, you know where they're in their, that disgusting stage, you're like picking everything up off the ground.

They're looking at screens, they're looking at the screen on the, on the washing machine and on the dishwasher. And then you know, you have the iPad. And as you say that, there's just a natural. Kind of interest that they have and the bright lights and the screens and what's going on and the excitement around it.

So I really think it's important that we're meeting parents where they are. I think that's what Instagram has really done with teen accounts, which we launched last [00:05:00] September, which was to really go and have. Very intentional, deep conversations with parents about what were the things that were making them concerned about their young people on social media.

And actually, you know what, it's, your son is six, but that's, that's a great age for you to start thinking about these things. We talk about it now. We already have, we. Big, deep conversations about it. 'cause he wants to know, why am I not, why aren't you putting me on your social media? Yeah. You know? Yeah.

Why, why can't I have an Instagram account? You know? So of course there will be a day when he will and that will be where we have thanks to you and thanks to what you're doing with Instagram teens, is that these teen accounts are really supporting kids in ways that are really mandatory, I think at this time.

And so we can kind of dive right in there because I think about Ollie and I think about my friends who have teenage children, and you don't know who these kids are messaging. You don't know who's messaging them. Look, I've seen this happen even with elders in my life that, you know, get really screwed up that have, that have [00:06:00] the adult brain to function and get really hooked into the wrong relationship on the internet.

Right? So how can parents supervise who their teens are messaging with? It's such an important question. So we talk to parents in the US particularly, but across the globe because we need to understand, I mean, Instagram is a global platform about really delving into what are the things that they're most concerned about cause the media will tell you that they're concerned about this, or government will say they're concerned about that and, and that's important.

But also going and talking directly to parents and the three things they told us were. Who can message my young person when they're using social media, using Instagram?

Who can as exactly as you said, do they know them offline? Do they, are they friends in school? Do they not know them, et cetera. So who can message them? The second things parents told, the second thing parents told us was about what's the content that they're seeing? Like what are, what are they coming across?

Is it appropriate for their age? If I've got a 13-year-old or a 17-year-old, is the content that they're seeing appropriate for the age that they're at and where they are? And then the [00:07:00] third thing their parents talked about is time. The amount of time that the young person. Should or shouldn't be spending on, on their phone.

I think the phone broadly and then social media, is it like it's 20 minutes, too much is an hour too much And I think there's no evidence out there to say, oh, it should be five minutes or it should be an hour. Like there's nothing out there. So parents are like talking to each other. They're on like the moms chat group saying, what do you think?

And you know, asking for that kind of advice. So we heard those three things. And then we built teen accounts to respond directly to those concerns. So with teen accounts, every teenager who joins Instagram and every teenager who is already on Instagram, who's under the age of 18, is moved automatically into very protective settings.

And those protective settings are, they can't be messaged by people they don't know are already following. And I think that really speaks to the par parental concern about that. We turn on what's called a sensitive content control so teenagers don't come across content that we don't think is appropriate for them to see.

And [00:08:00] the third thing is that we've really simplified the time limits and the way parents can kind of control to some extent the, the, the amount of time the young person is spending. So there's a, a 60 minute. Daily limit that pops up on the screen. And there's also within teen counts, a nighttime mode, which I really love because, well, you're not sure like how much time your young person should be spending on their, their phone during the day.

I think we're all of the same view that sleep is so important, whether you're a child is six or or or 12 or 13. And so you wanna know that they're not looking at their phone at night. So we have a nighttime mode that's turned on from 10 until 7:00 AM to just turn the app off. The nighttime mode turns off the app, it goes into nighttime mode and the young person could change that.

And I think this where this is important because all these settings that I talked about are all defaulted on for anyone under the age of, of of 18. But if you're under the age of 16, we're actually making it even more protective. And again, hearing from [00:09:00] parents, they really wanna know that their younger teens are having an even more protective experience.

And so if you're under the age of 16, you can't change any of these settings. Without getting parental approval, which is through the parental supervision tool on, on Instagram. And so if you're in parental supervision, you can go even further. And so you could in parental supervision, completely block Instagram at night or for as long as you want for your young person during the day.

You might say it's Ollie, it's one hour when you're, when you're eventually on Instagram, it's one hour and that's it. And I'm gonna set that in the parental supervision mode, which again is. What we're really trying to, to balance is that we're giving parents that peace of mind that we're turning all of these controls on through teen, teen accounts.

They don't have to do anything, it's all happening behind the scenes for them. But if parents wanna be even more involved, they can and they can. They can go into the parent supervision tool and they know that if their young person is under the age of 16, they cannot change any of these features without asking [00:10:00] the parent for, for approval.

So we think it's a really. Game changing product. We do hope that it's industry leading and like we're hoping that other, other, other platforms jump in and do the same thing, but it's really responding to, to parents and putting parents at the heart of the experience we want that young person to have on, on Instagram.

It's definitely industry leading. Like I said in the beginning, it's respectful of of the child. It's caring for the child's mind. Just to sort of recap, so I want be able to really get all these points. So you've got the nighttime mode, which. Parents can also go as far as controlling and saying, okay, we're turning it off.

Absolutely. Yep. They can. You're already, if you're under 18 already getting. The supervision's in the algorithm. Right. You're not gonna get served up anything that's inappropriate for your age rate. Yes, yes. That's huge. But you know, of course I don't, I don't, I don't give my son social media. I don't give him YouTube, but let's just say he randomly shows up on my he op finds my phone on the table and he goes onto my YouTube account.[00:11:00] 

You know, who knows what that's gonna show him? Right? Even if he was on his own account, I mean, you never know. It's gonna show him. No, it's not a good thing. There's additional features that you're add that you're planning to add to teen accounts. Right. So can you tell us about some of the additional features?

Absolutely. So we launched the teen accounts product back in September of, of, of 2024. And I think parents very rightly are saying, okay, how's, how's it doing? How's it going? Is it, is it working? And so we're, we're announcing a few different things to give parents. Again, that peace of mind we're announcing that we now have.

Over 50 million teenagers in the teen account experience globally, which is phenomenal. And that's also bearing in mind that it's, it's rolled out completely in the us. And a few other markets, including in Europe, but we haven't rolled it out completely in some of the big markets like India and Japan. So we're gonna see, you know, tens of millions more teens in this teen account experience, which is great.

The other thing that I think really proves the efficacy and that it's working is that we see that 97% of the [00:12:00] teen, the younger teen group, so the 13 to 15-year-old teen group, they're not. Trying to change any of those defaulted settings that we talked about. So they're not trying to, to change those settings.

They're not even trying to set up parental supervision necessarily to change those settings. They're just staying in those settings. And we think that really gives parents a peace of mind. And, you know, teens really appreciate it, right? They, they also really appreciate it. And they also wanna have fun on all the things they can do on Instagram without having to worry about who's contacting them in their dms.

The other two things that we're doing, one is we are, we're gonna be constantly. Evolving this, like this is the beginning. This is not like we've produced this, you know, we've this one product and now it's done. Not at all. And so we are announcing that we are bringing a couple of more products kind of into the teen accounts.

One is that a young person onto the age of 18 who wants to go live on Instagram and kind of broadcast and people can comment, et cetera. It's, it's wonderful, but we recognize that maybe for teens. They, their parents [00:13:00] should be involved in that, in that decision if they wanna go live. So we're defaulting anyone under the age of 18 who wants to go live will have to get parental approval if they're, if they're, particularly, if they're under the age of, of 16 to go live.

We think that's important against speaking to, to parents. And the second one in is a nudity filter. So. We don't allow for nudity on the on, on Instagram, on meta platforms. We have really strict rules about sexual content and the sharing of any kind of sexual content. But we've developed a nudity filter, which those are, those under the age of 18, have always had it defaulted on since, since we, since we launched a little while ago.

But now what we're doing is they can't turn that default off. And it's in their dms so they can, they don't see nudity in their, in their direct messages. They can turn that off if they're under the age of 16, they have to get the parent's approval. And again, you know what we would hope is they don't want to switch that off.

But if they do that, it actually ends up with them having to have a conversation with their parent about why. Very unpleasant conversation. [00:14:00] Yeah, exactly. Not an easy conversation to have. But certainly when you wanna be able to have before a, a teenager turns that kind of a, a filter, a filter off.

And the last thing we're doing is that we are expanding teen accounts to Facebook and to messenger.
So, and again, you know, in the US really teens are more on Instagram than probably they are on, on Facebook, but there's definitely huge, huge number of teenagers who are using Facebook in the US and, and, and more broadly across the globe. So we think it's important that we're making teen accounts available to those who are also using other, other.

Platforms within the, the Met Family. Just to recap for our listeners again, so teens are automatically placed into their teen accounts with whenever their, their teens that are under 16. They also gonna need parents' permission to change any of these settings to be less strict. And Instagram's also adding additional features that we've just talked about.

So the teen accounts, including. There's new restrictions for live. Okay, great. So this is super valuable. I just want everybody really understanding what they're gonna get from these features. [00:15:00] And it's not, it's not just the parents of teenagers. It's not parents like myself that are preparing for this as well.

And then me gonna, like you just said, begin to expand those teen accounts in Facebook and Messenger. And the teen accounts on Facebook and Messenger are offering that similar automatic protections. Right? Just the similar for like those unwanted contacts. Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's, it's important because while you're teenagers, like in some, some countries might not necessarily use Facebook in the same way parents do.

I do think that it, it's important because more parents are on Facebook, right? And so I think I. Bringing it to Facebook is really important because it's also just making parents kind of more aware of what these features are, particularly the supervision feature. And then we also have, we have a wonderful, wonderful guide on, on Meta more broadly, which is the family center we've built, but we've brought in like experts, uh, amazing, amazing kind of academics, and people from the nonprofit organizations connect safely the Mental Health Coalition in the US to [00:16:00] help us build guides for parents who wanna be more involved.

I had some questions. I actually pulled up questions from the family center, so that's actually family center.meta.com. They've got this section where some of the resources, when I was researching this episode, I came across some great conversation starters that, that met the Meta Family Center suggest to have those kinds of conversations around digital, our digital lives, and how we can keep the balance and keep people, keep our kids informed of the dangers in, in terms of social media.

And so I'm gonna read some of them off right now. Again, if you wanna look at all of this, you can go to family center.meta.com. The link will be in the show notes, but here are some of this, this conversation starters. This is also just very valuable for my listeners because I'm always telling folks in all relationships, particularly our relationships with our children, curiosity has to be the leader.

And so just being engaging in conversation and just using, using curiosity as a tool. No, it's not placing blame or shame or why'd you do this or you shouldn't do this, or these are the rules. It's much more about a [00:17:00] conversation starter, and that's so profound what you've done here. Here's a good question.

So are there times when a particular digital activity keeps you from doing other things that are more important? How do you know when it's time to take a break from using technology? Where are your favorite places to go online and when you wanna learn something new? So that's actually kind of cool, like where do you wanna go to learn something new?

What should you do if you share something and then find out that it wasn't true? I. Ooh. Okay. That's a good one. What do you think it's easier to be unkind to someone online or in person? That's a big one. It's because people can feel that they can say something online that they wouldn't say in the playground or you know, at a party.

And we just wanna remind teens. You know, you wanna behave online in the same way you behave face to face with someone, and, and in fact, you wanna behave even better, right? Because it's contextual and we all see it. If you're sending an email or a WhatsApp and you know, to a friend and they might misconstrue it, I mean, it, it's really important that they think about how they're commenting and [00:18:00] they think about how they're interacting with their, their friends when they're using Instagram.

That's so valuable. There's another question that sort of leads after that that I think is even more beautiful as it relates to how I would communicate with my kid. Have you ever found an opportunity to help another person online? Yes. I love that and I love that so much because that's how I use my social.

I'm just there to help. And so that, that's a really strong message to instill in children is that this is also a place where you can express kindness. Where you can, yes. Be supportive where you can encourage a kid or you can like something from someone that, that, you know, might be struggling in school, but if that one like could really, could really change their entire world.

Literally, if you're the cool kid and the kind, the kind comment that you can make that's gonna make their day or, or that you send, I mean, I do this with my friends. Like, you see a real that really makes you giggle and you think, you know what? I'm gonna send that to this person because I know they're either gonna find it funny or I might just pick them up for the day 'cause it's pick me up for the day.

And teenagers are, they're so kind to each other. They rea I think they are a kinder generation [00:19:00] honestly, than, than, than than my generation. I think they often use, that's how they use social medias to connect with their friends. They are naturally inquisitive when they're at that age, which is wonderful.

Yeah. I think that fostering that connection, really encouraging it being a place for. For empowering connection for kindness. It's huge. You know, I already, I already have these conversations with Ollie similar, where I'll say like, well, how do you feel after you watched your show for two hours? You know, like, what does your brain feel like right now?

You know, and he might be like a little mus or you know, just kind of giving him the dialogue around it. It's very valuable. Here's one other question that I loved. Who would you feel comfortable talking to if you felt worried about something that happened online? And just, just opening up these conversations.
The, the, the family center, it's like free therapy. I'm sure it was written with a child psychologist in mind, right? Oh, absolutely. We brought in so many experts to help us because it's important that we are sending out the right type [00:20:00] of advice to to, to parents for sure. And that's such a great point.

It's like, who. Who do you feel comfortable talking to? It might be an older sibling. It might actually, might not be a, a parent, it might be an older, a friend's older brother or sister, but just that they think if they do see something that makes them feel uncomfortable, that they know that they can go and talk to someone about it.

Definitely with Tina cans, you know, we are. Trying as much as you possibly can. Like it will never be, you know, of course at a hundred percent, but really trying as much as we can to make sure that the teens are able to come to Instagram and have this like super fun experience connecting experience and not worry about seeing content that they shouldn't be coming across.

Right. But if they do. That they know what to do about it, right? They know that they can report it. They know they can block people. And one of the things I've loved about teen accounts is we, we, we send notifications to teens to tell them that we are moving them into teen accounts and giving them, giving them language that really speaks to them. [00:21:00]

So explaining what teen accounts is and making them know that like, we're doing this because it's gonna make their experience on Instagram better. Often young people don't really like the idea of being in a protective experience, so they think that that's like too childish for them. So we've used language, we've brought in experts and use language that really resonates with teenagers because they just to say, look, we're gonna make this experience even better for you, so you can have even more fun here. Right? Rather than being worried that you're gonna come across something that that makes you feel a bit icky the way you're describing it, makes me want a teen count.

Can I have a, can a 45-year-old woman have a teen account? No, I want you to monitor what's coming to me. I don't wanna see it all. I'm just kidding. We do have other wonderful tools. I'm sure you use them to really keep you from Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And, and is there, are there any of those tools you wanted to share with, with our listeners?

One of the tools that I use and I really love is close friends. I dunno if you're aware of, or your listeners. So I love it because you. You may have a public account, you might also have [00:22:00] a, a, a private account, and there are certain things, particularly like really personal things like photographs of your children or a really like a personal family thing with maybe your parents or something that, you know, actually not, not everyone wants to see.

And I love the close friends list. So you can build a close friends list and you can, you can share some. Very private things with your, with your closest friends, and I always find that when I use the close friend list, people really engage, you know, they send loads of reactions back, they message you and, and I think that's a really lovely way to do it.

I'm Irish, but I live in London and so my family are like next door, so I really, I really love that. The other one is restrict mode, which again, teens. Really love this as well, but, but as do adults, which is that you can place another redhead in, in a restrict mode, so you won't necessarily block them.

So this is really to help if a young person is going through any kind of bullying and harassment at school. This stuff happens. Unfortunately, you know, as we, as we all, as we all age up. And what we found was the kind of the natural thing I think for [00:23:00] parents and adults to think is, oh, if you're, if you're getting bullied, why don't you just block.

Why don't, and actually that's, that's giving the bully the kind of the, the power and winning. Instead, you can put them in this restrict mode, which means that you can still see what this bully might be. Doing, but they cannot tag you or mention you love that, that you Yeah, and I think it's, and, and we built it with teens.

We actually, you know, we originally had the blocking mechanisms and then we were like, huh, why isn't this making teens happy or using it? So we went and spoke to teens. It was actually just around the time that I first joined Instagram and getting that feedback from them saying, wow. Yeah. Wow, wow. So. So they can't tag anyone.

So that kind of comments on anything. But you can see really limits the digital shaming. Yes, it does. It does. And you can also see what that individual is up to. So, because the power obviously, is that, you know, you come into the playground in the morning or you're in the classroom and you don't wanna not [00:24:00] know what's been going on because then you feel kind of like out of vision that you might be, that might precipitate even more bullying.

And so it really helps for those young people to kind of take control of the situation and the individual that you restrict, they don't know, so they think that they're saying something, but they're just shouting into a void.

And so it is, it's a wonderful feature and we hear over and over again from both. Teens, but actually public figures as well. And I like that you said that teens created that with you. Is that correct? Yeah. One of the things we do a lot at Meta is talk directly to teens and their experience is always, it's always really fun because 99 times out of a hundred their experience is, is, is positive.

And not just saying that, it just genuinely is. But what we've done with teen accounts is taking that even further and have the conversation with the parents as well. The parents of teens, the parents of younger. You know, teenagers as they're about to age up and, and, and, and join social media, parents are more worried about some of the things that the teens aren't worried about time is something that [00:25:00] teens do really appreciate, like time limits and being reminded to get off the app and using the language.

Say, Hey, you know, might be enough time. Yeah, go do something else. Teens actually really appreciate it. I think adults do as well. I think you can, you can easily get kind of sucked in and and be having like 20 minutes, half an hour and think, Ooh, I should probably go and do something else.

But actually getting that reminder in the app I think is really appreciated. It's a great problem to have. I. As a, as an app. I mean, that's actually really an, an important testament to, to beta in general, right? Because like you, obviously the apps want you to stick around. All apps want you to stick around, but you guys are actually encouraging people to stop when they to, and yeah, I think that's just really, really something to, to, to, to make, to take a, a, a point and highlight here.

Yeah, you don't, you don't want people thinking that it's taking away from other meaningful activities in their lives. And because that just becomes. A negative cycle, right? We want it to be one of the many things that brings them joy or brings them connection like that, that genuinely, there isn't a, [00:26:00] we're not sitting here thinking, how, how can we keep people more on Instagram?

We're thinking about like when they are with us on Instagram that they're having a meaningful experience or they're getting some joy and they're finding some happiness and they're connecting and then they go off and they do something else. But that's, that genuinely is how we think. We want them to be engaged, but we want them to be engaged in like a really positive way.

I love it. I love it all. I'm gonna, I'm gonna give everybody a really good overview of what's happening here. This is just to the recap for everybody so they know that it's here, that you use this. That you prepare, that you use it, that you use some of these features for yourself as adults as well? Like, like the restrict accounts, right?

It's called restrict accounts for the adults. Restrict, yeah. It's restrict. Restrict feature. Yeah. So teen accounts have built in these protections and these protections can limit who your teens can contact and who can contact them. Teens are automatically placed into teen accounts, and any teen under 16 years old needs parents permission to change any of these settings and they can need it to be a little [00:27:00] bit, you know, less strict on, on the, on the account. Yeah. Instagram is adding additional features to teen accounts that we just talked about, including new restrictions for Instagram Live, which I think is really important. I don't, I don't love the idea of a kid just going, going live.

Right. That's right. That's right. It's a, and it's also, you could go live by accident, you don't know, you know, that's happened to me before. And then these new, these new features like the live one and then meta will also begin expanding teen accounts to Facebook and Messenger and teen accounts on Facebook and Messenger are gonna offer similar automatic.

Protections and address unwanted contact and the sensitive content and all the time that we spend and the kid and the time that the kids are spending. The most important message here for me as a parent is that meta's taking a stance and that you're showing up as an organization that's saying, we care about kids, we want, we want kids to be able to use this platform for good.

We, even in the family center, you're encouraging conversations around kindness. And how to use the platform group for kindness. I'd love, I I love that. I love, that's even just like [00:28:00] even budding here. There's so much in that. Yeah. Is I wanna, I wanna like, do a kindness movement with children on social. You know, I just, I think that, I think that it, it actually can give kids such a positive feedback loop Absolutely.

In learning. I go, wow, that thing I just posted made someone feel good. And then they also, these kids, they wanna just be seen, right? So if you could be seen for making people feel good, think about. That light that you are seen in. Yeah. That, that to me is, is, is, is what I'm just trying every single day to instill in my son.

And I'm excited to know that when he is in a decade from now or whenever he's 16, and I've got full control over that account. Oh, that the, that these tools are gonna be even obviously so much more expansive by 10 years from now. I can't even imagine. But I, I remember I went to the launch event for teen accounts in New York City.

I sat there in the room and I was like asking all the questions and I was just honestly just so thrilled that you guys have done this. [00:29:00] That feels so good to hear that because we, you know, we launch these things and we hope. That they land particularly by parents. And the other thing about teen cans, just to give parents that kind of, again, that, that peace of mind is that your teenager, when they join Instagram or Indeed, they're already on Instagram, they just get moved automatically into this teen account experience.

We don't ask them. We let them know. We don't ask them for permission. We just have moved them across into the experience whether they kind of want to or not. As I said, 97% of teens so far between 13 and 15 have just stayed in those more protective experiences, which I think really shows that they appreciate it and that their experience on Instagram hasn't changed.

Like the joy, the fun, the connection that they're getting is exactly the same as it was, but in this more protective space. I bet it's better if they can restrict someone, you know, if they can, you know, use their time wisely. I, I think they're probably having a much better experience on the, on the app.

Yeah. We hope we, we really hope so. And we [00:30:00] hope parents are thinking, okay, I, I don't need to worry. But also if I wanna be a bit more involved, I know that my teenager can't make any of these changes without me being involved and without me having that conversation when they set up supervision and you'll get a little popup to say, Hey, your, your son or daughter wants to change some of these settings, are you okay?

If they do and you, you as a parent, can then. We hope have that offline conversation and say, Hey, how come you wanna change the time limit? Why do you wanna have more time and not less time? Let's, let's talk about that. Let's, let's, let's think about what you're doing when you're on Instagram and why you want to increase the time.

It might be good because you're doing a project in school and you need more time. Fine. You know, Pam might say, okay, that's okay. I, I feel good about that. But you know, it might be just. Wanna spend more time and you're saying, you know what, I think that hour is plenty. And, and we're gonna leave it as it is, leaves for a conversation starter, which is not, you know, it's, it's, it's not, and it's not just something that's happening that we don't know about.

There's enough that we don't know about. Exactly. I feel like there's a good tagline here. It's like, [00:31:00] parents, we've got it handled. You know, we've this Yeah, because I remember there was something going on with my kid at school and they're like, oh, we handle that. And I was like, oh. And it feels like that, it feels like you're just like, it's like we got it handled.

I'm really glad. Yeah, because I, I, it is, it's something that we wanted to do was to, was to give parents that peace, like putting them at the center, but also taking the pressure away from them. Like I think parents feel so much pressure, and this is just one app, like Instagram is just one of so many apps that young people are using that when the teenager comes to this app.

We're taking the pressure off them, and then if they wanna get more involved, we're giving them all the ways they can. But if they also don't wanna be more involved, they've got too much going on that it's happening behind the scenes. The other thing is just knowing and understanding the age of those that are on our platform is really important.

So you have to be over 13 to have an Instagram account. And I would to all your listeners, your parents out there, if, if your teen is on Instagram, just, you know, make sure that they've got the right. Right age on Instagram because we build, [00:32:00] we build teen accounts 'cause we know, you know, a young person is told it their age and we, we make sure that they're put into the, the teen account experience.

We make sure that they're getting that age appropriate content. 'cause we know the age they are. So, you know, we have lots of ways that we try to find those who might've misstated their age. And we're looking at like technology, we're investing in, in AI technology to find. Teenagers who may have misstated their age in, in the past accidentally or on purpose, and we're gonna move, be moving them into the teen account experience as well.

And that's starting in the US quite soon. There's lots of ways we, we go around trying to find, if you've maybe not told us your age and we, we don't talk about it too publicly because. You know, we don't wanna give out some of the secrets that we, we use behind the scenes, but I think it is really important that the parents know that.

Like, tell us, tell us the age. My, even my own son, he knows I work at Instagram and he asked me if he could have Instagram when he was 12. Like, no, Tom. You know, he just, it's like a lot of his friends try and they put the wrong age in or whatever, and so we really [00:33:00] wanna make sure the right age is, is stated on their Instagram account.

Listen, I'm, I'm, I'm really proud of you guys. I'm really grateful and I'm, I'm so glad that we had the chance to connect and communicate about this. And I want everyone to know that Instagram's got a handled for your teens and to, to use the tool to u to to use teen accounts as a parent, to get involved and to look at, look at all the, all the great, great.

I like the word control, but monitoring that you have your fingertips. Yeah, the monitor. And that parents know if they have the time. Jump onto Instagram. Have a look at the teen account setting so that you know as a parent what you're, what, what the default settings are. It gives you that peace of mind and then, you know, if they want to, they can set up supervision and they can be in that supervisory relationship.

And if they are actually gives, it does give parents. A bit more, so I should probably say that there's, there's a couple of things within the parental supervision. We talked earlier on about the time limits that if you're in parental supervision, you and your teen, that the parent can actually really block Instagram [00:34:00] for, for like longer time, longer amount of time, which is, which is important.

The other one that we talked to parents about is, is messaging. So direct messaging, ig dms. Messaging IG dms are a private space, and, and, and, and your teen has, is, is able to use IG dms. But parents told us they, you know, they, they wonder about who they're talking to, who they're connecting with, when they're on, when they're on Instagram and, and who they might be messaging.

So. What we've done is within parental supervision, if you're in that supervisory relationship with a young person, you can actually see in the kind of dashboard the names, the account names of those who've been messaging and who your team has been messaging over the, over the seven days previously, which we think is striking the right balance between the parent not actually seeing the messages, like being able to kind of open the diary like my, my age group, like the parent can't actually see into their private diary, their private thoughts, their private messaging, but they can have insights into who their young person has been messaging.

Wow. And then they can [00:35:00] have that conversation, you know, offline. They can say, Hey, I saw you've been messaging this person. Is that someone in your school? Is that a new friend? Is that from, you know, someone from your basketball, whatever.

And we think that's. Again, striking the right balance and really responding to parents who said they want to know a bit more, but they do actually know that the, that the young person has this kind of, you know, private space that they wanna be able to talk to their teens in or their friends in. So we think that's, we think we've got the, the right balance in place there, but, we'll, we'll continually monitor it, but it's, it's definitely something that parents can.

If you are using the supervisory tool, you can go in, there's a dashboard, you can see the amount of time your young person is spending. You can see who they've been messaging over the last seven days. You can see what the time limits are and you can, you can expand them or you can, you know, decrease them depending on, you know, summer holidays or school times or whatever.

So there are extra things you can do and you can set up if you're in that supervisory experience on Instagram. Bravo. Bravo. [00:36:00] Oh, we're gonna take all the tools we can get as parents in this, in this era. So just, just thank you so, so much for, for, for sharing this and giving us the insight on how to use it and how to, and how to.

Also just reminding everybody to go to family center.meta.com for those, those conversational prompts. It's like free therapy there. Free family therapy, free therapy, free advice. Please use it. Yeah, really use it. Yeah. And get those conversation starters and be curious and. And use the tools you have and, and know that that Instagram's got it handled.

Thank you so much for having me. It was really a pleasure. Thank you so, so much for being with me.
If you made it to the end of this episode, that means you're truly committed to miracles. I'm really proud of you. If you wanna get more Gabby, tune in every Monday for a new episode. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss any of the guidance or special bonus episodes. Your experience of this show means a lot to me, so I really [00:37:00] wanna welcome you to leave an honest review and you can follow me on social media at Gabby Bernstein.

And if you wanna get in on the action, sign up for a chance to be Dear Gabby, live@deargabby.com. See you next week.

Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode. Hi there, Gabby here. This podcast is intended to educate, inspire, and support you on your personal journey towards inner peace.

I'm not a psychologist or a medical doctor and do not offer any professional health or medical advice. If you are suffering from a psychological or medical condition, please seek help from a qualified health professional.