Messenger and Instagram are getting new parental control tools

Finally, parents and guardians can gain better insight into their teen’s social media use — at least for Messenger and Instagram. Starting Tuesday, Meta is rolling out a suite of parental control tools to better control usage of both apps.

In Meta’s post announcing the new features, the company outlined several ways parents can monitor and understand their kids’ Messenger habits. For starters, now you can see how much time a teenager spends on Messenger. You can also see their contact list, privacy and security settings, who can see and message their Messenger stories (i.e. friends, friends of friends or no one) and get notifications when these settings change. If teens allow it, you’ll also get notifications if they report someone. Parents still can’t read their teenage children’s messages.

These tools are now available in the US, UK and Canada. Meta says the global expansion will happen “in the coming months.” New parental control tools will arrive in the next year and will work with both unencrypted and end-to-end encrypted messages.

Instagram is getting more parental control tools. Guardians can see which accounts their teens are following and unfollowing, and how many friends they have in common. Behind the scenes, Meta adds additional barriers to prevent unscrupulous adults from contacting minors. Before sending a private message (much less photos, videos or calls), an invitation to connect must be sent first – and only one invitation can be sent. The move builds on Instagram’s previous restrictions, which prevented people over the age of 19 from messaging teenagers who don’t follow them.

These Messenger and Instagram safety features are complemented by a package aimed at improving mental health. Facebook is getting Instagram’s Take a Break feature, which encourages users to stop using the app and set daily limits. Instagram, for its part, will begin recommending that teenagers close the app if they spend an evening scrolling through their reels (in fairness, there are plenty of adults who could use the latter feature). For an overview of these features or to learn more about others, visit Meta’s Family Center page.