TEENS AND SCREENS: HOW SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS ARE SUPPORTING PARENTS AND TEENS TO MANAGE THEIR TIME ONLINE WITH NEW FEATURES

Learn About New Ways to Focus and Set Boundaries on Instagram with ‘Quiet Mode’ and More Features to Support Teen Well-being

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BACKGROUND:
Relationships are essential to our well-being. Social media platforms help people form and maintain relationships, express themselves, and find support if they need it. It’s important that users, especially young people, connect with others in an environment where they feel safe, and where they leave social media apps feeling good about the time they spend on them. Teens have told us that they sometimes want to take time for themselves and might be looking for more ways to focus at night, while studying, and during school. In an effort to give users more control over their time and content, a new tool ‘Quiet mode’ has been launched on Instagram to help users focus when they need to most and to encourage people to set boundaries with friends and followers.

Dayna Geldwert, Head of Global Policy Programs at Instagram shares more details about ‘Quiet Mode’ and how to use this new feature. She also discusses multiple settings that have been updated to help manage time, provide additional parental controls and assist in controlling the content you see.

NEW AND IMPROVED SETTINGS:

Quiet Mode: Once enabled, you won’t receive any notifications, your profile’s activity status will change to ‘In quiet mode’ and an automatic reply is sent when someone DMs you. Instagram also prompts teens to turn this on.
Managing Recommendations: You can now choose to hide multiple pieces of content that you aren’t interested in at one time as well as hide words, emojis or hashtags that you want to see less of in recommended posts in places like Reels, Search and Explore in posts.
Parental Supervision Tools: Parents are now able to see their teen’s social media settings and will be notified if a change is made to those settings. Parental tools also let parents and guardians see who their teen reports or blocks and set “blocking hours” for when they can use platforms.
Take a Break: Everyone, including teens, now have the option to set time limits or ‘Take a Break’ on Instagram to remind them to take regular pauses on social media.
Control Your Content: People now have more control over the content they see on Instagram. If you’re “Not Interested” in a post on Explore, the app will aim to avoid showing you this kind of content going forward in places like Reels, Search and more.

For more information please visit: familycenter.meta.com

MORE ABOUT DAYNA GELDWERT:
Dayna Geldwert has more than 10 years of experience designing high-visibility, high-impact programs, campaigns and partnerships to support young people—online and off. As Instagram’s Global Head of Policy Programs, Dayna engages leading external experts to inform our products and policies, and develops creative initiatives and resources to ensure teens have a safe and meaningful experience on the platform. Previously, Dayna served as Instagram’s Public Policy Manager for Global Politics, Government and Elections, managing relationships with political and government stakeholders and building activations to support youth civic engagement. Prior to Instagram, Dayna led digital communications at Girl Up, the United Nations Foundation’s global girls’ empowerment initiative. There, she built award-winning advocacy and awareness campaigns to advance girls’ rights and opportunities globally.

Interview Provided by: Meta