Instagram will let parents set time limits, urge teens to “take a break”

Instagram is immensely popular among the young, and Facebook even wanted to launch a dedicated Instagram Kids app for kids under the age of 13 — the current minimum age for an Instagram account. This idea backlashed hard and back in September, the company had to freeze the project.

Now Instagram has officially announced a new “stricter approach” toward teens on the app, and a bunch of tools to help parents better manage their young ones.

“We’ll be taking a stricter approach to what we recommend to teens on the app, we’ll stop people from tagging or mentioning teens that don’t follow them, we’ll be nudging teens towards different topics if they’ve been dwelling on one topic for a long time and we’re launching the Take a Break feature in the US, UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, which we previously announced,” reads part of the official post.

The “Take a Break” feature will allow teens (and other users too) to set reminders and after they’ve been scrolling for a certain amount of time (10, 20, or 30 minutes) the app will show a prompt, asking them to pause and ease off.

This new feature builds upon the existing Daily Limit functionality, which allows users to manage their total amount of time on Instagram, and mute notifications from the app once that time runs out.

How do I set a daily time limit on Instagram?

Here’s how to set a daily time limit reminder:

1. Open the Instagram app on your iPhone or Android
2. Select the profile icon in the bottom right to enter your profile settings
3. Tap on the hamburger icon
4. Select Your Activity
5. Tap on Time
6. Then select the Set daily time limit option
7. Choose the desired amount of time and tap Done
8. That’s it! You’re all set

It’s also worth noting that Instagram will start to proactively show reminders asking people to turn on the “Daily Limit” and “Take a Break” features.

Instagram is launching new tools for parents and guardians in March 2022

Showing kids notification and urging them to take a break is one thing, but making them actually do it is a completely different matter. That’s why Instagram will launch a set of tools for parents and guardians to allow them to manage their kids’ time on the app.

“Parents and guardians will be able to view how much time their teens spend on Instagram and set time limits. We’ll also give teens a new option to notify their parents if they report someone, giving their parents the opportunity to talk about it with them. This is the first version of these tools; we’ll continue to add more options over time.”

There’s also a new educational hub for parents currently under development, to help them understand the dynamic and sometimes confusing modern social network reality their teens are swimming into every day.

Bulk delete photos and videos

Finally, Instagram is starting to test a new way for people to manage Instagram, adding the ability to delete content in bulk. The company thinks that this feature will be especially useful for teens, as they might want to revisit things they’ve posted after they’ve grown up a bit and obliterate them in bulk. The feature will be available for everyone in January, so if you want to do some spring cleaning, this will be the perfect excuse to do so.