We know many parents and guardians think about what their teens are doing online, and we feel a great responsibility to make sure Instagram is a positive place for them to connect and share. That’s why we’ve created A Parent’s Guide, a new resource for parents with teens who use Instagram.
We’ve always been focused on making sure the community on Instagram is supportive and safe, and we’ve been building tools to proactively care for the people who use our products. Tools like comment controls, the ability to report unwanted interactions, and most recently, a suite of features to help you manage time on the app were all developed to help ensure people’s experience with Instagram is positive, safe and intentional.
In A Parent’s Guide, we focus on three things: how to manage privacy, interactions and time on Instagram. We’ve included the basics of our app, and a description of our tools, plus a discussion guide for how parents and guardians can have an open conversation with their teens about Instagram. The discussion questions were developed in collaboration with education and social media expert, Ana Homayoun, M.A., P.P.S., and are designed to help parents and guardians learn more about how teens are using Instagram and to ensure they’re using the app in a positive way. We’re grateful to organizations like the National PTA, Scholastic, ConnectSafely, National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI), National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA), GLSEN, Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, PFLAG, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Girl Scouts of the USA, and PACER’s National Bullying Prevention Center for collaborating with us on this guide.
I work at Instagram, and I’m also a parent. That’s the lens I bring into the office each day, just like many other parents who work here. We know the social media landscape will continue to change, and we’re committed to being here every step of the way to make sure parents and their teens have the tools they need to make the choices that are right for them.
Written by Marne Levine,COO, Instagram