Instagram has introduced parenting supervision tools in the Uk and Ireland this month. Instagram’s all-new pack of parental supervision tools is great news for UK parents and guardians.
At least they can now breathe a sigh of relief after years of fretting about the potential harm posed by social media platforms to children.
The fear has always been occasioned by the bad news about youngsters vs these platforms that have been making headlines over the past few years.
Parents will first need to send an invitation to their children, requesting them to initiate Instagram’s Parental supervision of their accounts.
Once the child accepts the invitation, their Instagram will automatically be under the supervision of their parent until they reach 18 years after which it will automatically end.
While this is great because the parent has to seek the child’s consent first before beginning to monitor and control their Instagram activities, it’s also flawed because not every kid will accept the invitation.
As long as it remains pending, the parent will not be able to see what their child is doing on the platform. It would have been greater if the new parental supervision tools allowed the parent to automatically keep up with their child’s Instagram activities without first seeking their consent.
New Instagram Parental Supervision Tools To Give Parents Peace of Mind
While Instagram is legal for users aged 13 and above, it’s not surprising that lots of younger children currently use it. That’s why Meta, the company that owns the social media app, contemplated creating a separate version of the app for children below 13 in 2021. However, this created a major backlash, forcing the company to shelve its plans to create one.
Why Is Instagram Parental Controls A Great News For UK Parents And Guardians?
In 2017, for example, the world got shocked when a US teenager called “Molly Russell” committed suicide after viewing suicide content on Instagram.
Following investigations, the authorities learned that the 14-year-old girl had accessed her account more than 120 times daily six months before her death. The social media company later issued a statement clarifying that it doesn’t tolerate self-harm or suicide content, further stating that it was getting rid of any content of that nature.
Last year, the Wall Street Journal reported that Meta(the company that owns Instagram) had found that teenagers blamed Instagram for increased feelings of anxiety and depression, following secret research.
The company then decided to keep the findings secret even though it would have been a noble act to release them. However, the company later defended itself by saying that the newspaper focused on a small proportion of the findings that wrongly put the company in an unfavorable light.
Infostor (c)
