Instagram has enacted various safety measures for its platform that affect teens across the country, and in a few months, around the world.
On Sept. 17, Meta introduced their “teen accounts,” an account with built-in safety features catered toward teens. These new guidelines will affect teenagers signing up for Instagram and make changes to accounts that already exist.
To create an account, adolescents must meet the minimum age requirement of 13 years old. Teen accounts are for people aged 13-17.
The largest safety measure taken is making all of these accounts private. According to Meta, teens need to accept new followers for their content to be seen and for private messaging. Teens can only be messaged by people they follow or are already connected with.
Michigan State University elementary education senior Tristyn Guerrero said even she gets “weird direct messages” from strangers. With how many she is getting, she said, she can’t imagine how many children may receive.
According to Meta, teenagers will also be placed in the “most restrictive setting” for content control, which limits sensitive content. Some of the restricted content includes fighting and posts that promote cosmetic procedures in places such as Reels and the Explore page.
Teens under 16 need parental permission to "change any of these settings to be less strict."
“People just push out very harmful content and anyone has access to it,” Guerrero said. “I think when social media was first introduced, it was more of a fun thing, and now I think people take advantage of it and then they take advantage of younger internet users.”
Guerrero is a student teacher for a second-grade class in St. Johns. She said she often hears students make references to popular TikTok audios and discuss what YouTube channels they watch, including streamers who play violent video games.
Even with guidelines, children find ways to lie about their ages and access platforms geared toward adults.
“It's kind of disheartening to see that such young children, like six, seven, eight years old, have access to Instagram and TikTok and get to see what's on there,” Guerrero said. “It's not geared toward kids. It's more for high schoolers and above, but they still have access to it.”
Secondary education junior Grace Lange said she thinks social media waters down in-person connections due to the grasp the platforms have on people.
“I worry about technology and our dependence on it and how it affects kid’s attention spans,” Lange said. “I worry about having to command the attention of 30 students in a classroom one day when there's so many other things out there that just demand attention.”
Professor of journalism at the College of Communication Arts and Sciences Esther Thorson said kids will lie about their age to have full access to Instagram.
Instagram is trying to combat this.
According to Meta, they are testing new age-verifying software for stricter enforcement of teen accounts. Since 2019, Instagram has asked users to provide their age when signing up for the platform.
Now, if someone attempts to change their birthdate from under 18 to over 18, they must upload their ID for verification. Instagram is also testing two new ways of verification.
One option is a video selfie. Taking a video selfie using the software, Yoti, it will estimate your age based on your facial features and share the estimation with Meta. According to Meta, the software cannot recognize your identity. Meta and Yoti will delete the video after verification.
Option two in testing is social vouching, requiring three mutual followers, who are over the age of 18, to verify your age. Those who are vouching “will need to meet other safeguards” Meta plans to have in place.
Thorson said there are still ways for teens to lie about their age.
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“They say AI can look at your picture and tell how old you are, but who's going to submit their own picture?” Thorson said. “That's the problem. There’s just so many ways to cheat your way around it. I doubt it's going to work.”
Additionally, parents will have access to their teen's accounts. According to Meta, parents will be able to see who their children are talking to and what topics they are viewing. They can also block their teen from using the app during certain times of the day and set daily time limits.
Lange said the ability for parents to restrict what their child is viewing is helpful for their safety.
“Having unrestricted access to the internet is honestly not good for anyone of any age, but especially young impressionable minds,” Lange said.
Thorson said Gen Z spends an average of three hours a day on social media.
“But more worrisome, is that a third of these Gen Zers are on for seven to 10 hours a day on social media, which is a lot of hours," Thorson said. “So Zuckerberg and pals have been under a lot of criticism for this impact of particularly time spent on Instagram.”
Meta plans to bring teen accounts to some of their other platforms next year, such as WhatsApp and Facebook.
The platform plans to place teens into these accounts within the next 60 days in the U.S., Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. Later this year, they plan to use these accounts in the European Union as well.
