I remember when Instagram first came out in 2010. As a newly minted college student, I downloaded the Facebook (now Meta) subsidiary and began following all my friends. I marveled over the different filters and vignettes available, snapping artistic photos of my coffee cup, fall leaves around campus and an old Volkswagen Beetle painted to resemble a ladybug.
Then, in 2022, I deleted my Instagram account. Long story short (which you can read more about in my blog “Deleting My Instagram Was Nearly Impossible—But I Did It Anyway”), Instagram accounted for the majority of my daily screentime—and a staggering amount of my personal time, too—without providing much more than inane entertainment in return.
Despite these revelatory actions on my part, Instagram is still widely popular. It’s No. 2 in both app stores with more than 5 billion downloads since its inception. According to Pew Research, 59% of American teenagers use Instagram, and nearly half use it daily.
Now, perhaps that wouldn’t be such a problem if recent revelations on the media’s part hadn’t proven how harmful Instagram can be.
In 2021, the “Facebook Papers” revealed that Meta was aware of Instagram’s harmful effect on teen girls and did nothing. In 2022, the company was sued after it allegedly recommended content “glorifying” anorexia and self-harm. Just last year, 33 state attorneys general filed a lawsuit against Meta for, according to the suit, creating addictive features aimed at young people. And earlier in 2024, the FBI issued a warning about sextortion scams on Instagram targeting primarily teen boys.
Granted, Meta has done quite a bit to combat this bad press by removing “age-inappropriate” content from teenagers’ feeds, enabling systems to detect and blur nude photographs and initiating safety protocols to protect teens from scammers and bullies.
But even with these protocols in place, Instagram is still largely a headache for parents. After learning about these possible harms, it can be instinctual to say “no” if your teen asks for permission to join the social media platform. Or you might be inclined to delete your teenager’s account if they already have one. But then you start to worry: What if your kid starts to feel ostracized by not having an account? What if their classmates mock them for their lack of presence on social media? Or what if your teen disobeys and decides to join Instagram anyway?
Only you, as the parent, can have these conversations with your teen (which we strongly encourage) and make that decision to say “yes” or “no.” But if you do say “yes,” we also strongly recommend you take some precautions in the form of setting up parental controls on Instagram.
Supervised Accounts
Like many other social media platforms, Instagram’s parental controls come in the form of “supervised accounts.” The pros here are that you can view how much time your kids are spending on Instagram, set time limits, schedule breaks and see who your kids are following (and who is following them). You can also be notified if your teen changes their account settings or reports or blocks another user—which may open the door for some important conversations about why they chose to do so.
The cons, of course, are that you must have an Instagram account of your own to supervise from, and your child can remove the supervision at any point. So, it’s important to have ongoing conversations with your teens about the expectations here. Let them know you’re here to help them and protect them from harm, not trying to ruin their life.
Create an Account
The first step to setting up Instagram Parental Controls is to create an account for both you and your teen. If you’ve done this already, you can skip down to Set Up Parental Controls. But if you haven’t, follow these steps:
Note: Although Instagram requires users to be 13 years old or older, there isn’t currently an age-verification process. So there’s still a chance that younger kids have secret accounts. Additionally, even if your teen accepts the account supervision, they may be using a finsta (fake Instagram account) to get around those controls. If this is a concern, consider monitoring your child’s screen time usage through your device’s parental control features.
If you have a Facebook account:
- Open the Instagram app.
- Choose whether to link your Facebook account (if you choose not to link the accounts, follow the steps for “If you don’t have a Facebook account”).
- If you choose “yes,” you may be prompted to login to your Facebook account.
- Tap “Next” to sync your name, profile picture and avatar.
- Create a username.
- Read Instagram’s terms and polices, then tap “I agree” to create an account.
If you don’t have a Facebook account:
- Open the Instagram app.
- Click “Create new account.”
- Enter your email address or phone number.
- Enter the confirmation code sent to your email or phone.
- Create a password.
- Enter your birthday.
- Add your name.
- Enter a username.
- Read Instagram’s terms and policies, then tap “I agree” to create an account.
- Add a profile picture (or “Skip” this step), and choose whether to make this picture your first post.
- From here, you can follow additional steps to give Instagram access to your phone and Facebook contacts to make it easier to follow your friends.
Enable Parental Controls
Once you and your teen each have an account set up, you’ll link them through Account Supervision, enabling the parental controls.
- In your account, tap your profile picture in the bottom right corner.
- Tap the three lines in the top right corner.
- Scroll down to “For families” and tap “Supervision” (also known as Meta’s Family Center).
- Tap “Get started.”
- Invite your child to Account Supervision (they’ll have 48 hours to respond before the invitation expires:
- If you’ve already followed them, select their profile and click “Invite.”
- If you aren’t following them, select “Create Invite.” Text or email the link to your child.
- Once they’ve accepted, go back to Supervision in Settings.
- Select your child’s profile.
- Explore the available parental controls.
- Set time limits for how long your teen can use Instagram each day.
- Set scheduled breaks that limit your teen’s access to Instagram during certain days and times
- Monitor how much time your teen is using Instagram each day
- See which accounts your teen is following and who is following them back
- See which accounts your teen has blocked.
- View your teen’s settings for privacy, content and messaging.
Note: If your teen changes their settings, you will be notified via the Instagram app. Your teen will also have the option to notify you if they report someone or something on Instagram.
Privacy Features
Supervised accounts don’t allow parents to change their child’s privacy settings. However, several features are designed to keep young users safe, and you should talk through those features with your teens. Then, they can set up each of these features through their account.
Private Account
One way to help protect your kids is to set their account to “private.” The benefit of a private account is that the user can approve who can or can’t follow them. And only their followers will be able to view their photos and videos. By default, accounts of teens 16 years old or younger are set to private. And accounts that existed before this default was set are prompted to switch to a private account.
- Go to Settings. (Steps 1-2 of Enable Parental Controls above)
- Scroll down to “Who can see your content” and tap “Account Privacy.”
- Toggle “Private Account” on.
- Click “Switch to private.”
Close Friends
For additional privacy, your child can limit whom of their followers can see certain Stories (photos and videos that disappear after 24 hours). They can do this by selecting a list of “Close Friends.” Once enabled, they simply need to select the Close Friends option when posting Stories.
- Go to Settings.
- Scroll down to “Who can see your content” and tap “Close Friends.”
- Select from your followers whom you would like to add to this list. (Nobody but you will be able to see the full list. And users will not be notified if they are added or removed from the list.)
Note: Your teen can also add someone to their Close Friends list by going to that person’s profile and clicking “Following,” then clicking “Add to Close Friends List.”
Message Controls
Instagram has significantly cracked down on sextortion and grooming attempts. It restricts adults from sending direct messages (DMs) to teens under 18 who haven’t followed them. Instagram also sends safety notices to teenagers encouraging caution when messaging an account belonging to an adult. And the platform also alerts teens if an adult they’ve been messaging has been “exhibiting potentially suspicious behavior,” such as sending large amounts of friend or message requests to users under 18. (Accounts flagged as such are also prevented from finding the accounts of teens through additional safety features.)
Luckily, parents don’t need to enable those protocols. It’s an Instagram standard. But young users should still enable filters on their DMs to ensure they don’t receive message requests from bots, strangers or other unseemly characters.
- Go to Settings.
- Scroll down to “How other can interact with you” and tap “Messages and story replies.”
- Enable filters based on your preferences.
Tag & Mention Controls
While enabling the above privacy features may protect your teen from stranger danger, there’s still a possibility someone else will post a picture or video of them on Instagram. Although this isn’t necessarily bad, your child may wish to protect their identity. And if so, they should limit the ability for other Instagram users to tag them in posts.
- Go to Settings.
- Scroll down to “How other can interact with you” and tap “Tags and mentions.”
- Select who can tag you in their own posts or comments.
Note: You can also limit who can share your posts or Stories by tapping “Sharing.”
Blocking Features
So, we just covered the different ways you and your teen can limit bad interactions with strangers. But now we want to cover ways to limit toxic exchanges with people they already know. In other words, here’s how Instagram helps families to prevent cyberbullying:
Block a Profile
If you want to completely avoid someone on Instagram, blocking is the way to go. When you block someone on Instagram, they won’t be notified. But they also won’t be able to see your profile, posts or Stories (and you won’t see theirs either, for that matter).
- On the profile you wish to block, tap the three dots in the top right corner.
- Click Block.
Note: You can also block future accounts that user creates by selecting “Block [username] and new accounts they may create.”
Restrict a Profile
If you don’t necessarily want to block someone but you also don’t want to see their comments on your posts, you can try restricting instead. Like blocking, they won’t be notified if you restrict them. But they can see your profile, posts, Stories, etc. And they can leave comments on your stuff, too. However, nobody will be able to see that comment but them. If you want to see their comment, tap it. From there, you can either approve the comment, delete it or simply ignore it. Additionally, restricted users won’t be able to see when you are active on Instagram or whether you’ve read DMs they’ve sent to you.
- On the profile you wish to restrict, tap the three dots in the top right corner.
- Click Restrict.
Note: Alternately, you can restrict profiles by going to Settings and scrolling down to “Restricted.”
Mute a Profile
Muting someone works a little like restricting in reverse. The muted person will not know they’ve been muted. They’ll be able to see your profile and content: but you won’t see theirs. This can be especially useful if someone’s posts really get you riled up or thinking negatively.
- On the profile you wish to mute, tap Following under their profile picture.
- Click Mute.
Note: Unfollowing, like muting, will also stop your child from seeing someone’s content in their feed. However, the person they unfollow may find out, especially if your child later decides to re-follow them.
Limit Interactions
Blocking and restricting are great options to prevent cyberbullying. But if you want to tailor your Instagram experience further, you should limit your interactions only to people you really care about.
- Go to Settings.
- Scroll down to “How others can interact with you” and tap “Limit interactions.”
- Adjust your limitations: what you want limited, who you want limited and how long you want the limit to last.
- Click “Turn on.”
Reporting Features
Unfortunately, even with privacy settings in place and the ability to block folks, inappropriate interactions can still occur on Instagram. It’s just the nature of social media. However, families can help combat this by reporting profiles, posts, comments and more that violate Instagram’s Community Guidelines.
Report a Profile
- On the offending profile, tap the three dots in the top right corner.
- Click Report.
Report a Post
- On the offending post, tap the three dots in the top right corner.
- Click Report.
Report a Comment
- On the offending comment, swipe left.
- Tap the exclamation point.
- Click Report This Comment.
Report a DM
- On the offending direct message, tap and hold the message.
- Click Report.
Report a Live video
- Next to Comment at the bottom of the offending Live, tap the three dots.
- Click Report.
Report a Story
- On the offending Story, tap the three dots in the top right corner.
- Click Report.
Report a Reel
- On the offending Reel, tap the three dots in the bottom right corner.
- Click Report.
Additional Safety Features
Content Preferences
Social media is designed to keep us hooked. But Instagram has implemented a few content preference tools to help tailor our experiences. Don’t get me wrong, Instagram still wants us to keep scrolling—but these options allow us to perhaps see a little less drivel so we can engage in content we actually care about.
- Go to Settings.
- Scroll down to “What you see” and tap “Content Preferences.”
- Adjust your preferences, including “Sensitive content” and “Political content.” You can also choose to “Snooze” suggested content so that you see more of what your friends are posting and less of what Instagram thinks you want to see.
Hidden Words
By default, Instagram tries to hide potentially offensive or spammy comments. But parents can also encourage their teens to block certain types of comments or messages. This includes but isn’t limited to foul language, suggestive emojis, spam and scams.
- Go to Settings.
- Scroll down to “How others interact with you” and tap “Hidden Words.”
- Adjust the settings as necessary.
Comment Warning
Sometimes we don’t realize that something we’ve typed out could hurt someone else’s feelings—or even just be taken the wrong way depending on tone. For that reason, Instagram has utilized AI to detect potentially problematic comments and warn the user before they post. And reportedly they’ve seen a behavioral shift since they began this policy.
Manage Like Counts and Comments
One of the reasons Instagram is so disparaged is due to the “like” count on every post. Teenagers especially are sensitive to how many likes, views or comments their posts receive, and it can lead to poor self-image and other problems if a post doesn’t get as much engagement as they hoped.
For the most part, parents will need to talk to their kids about this problem. Encourage them to disable likes and comments when they post content. Support decisions to restrict certain profiles or even to delete comments. They can also hide the like and share count of other people’s posts in Settings.
Ad Experience
Regretfully, Instagram is not ad-free. But the company no longer allows advertisers to target teens based on their interests, activities or previous engagement. Additionally, ads featuring restricted topics (such as alcohol, financial products and weight loss products/services) are prohibited from being shown to people under 18.
Conclusion
Like many other social media and streaming platforms, Instagram’s parental controls has its share of pros and cons. But the most important thing that parents can do to protect their kids online is to have a conversation with them. Your teen may be more aware of the problems that occur on these platforms than you realize. And they may be open to some of the features highlighted in this article. And perhaps instead of saying “no” right out of the gate, we can start saying, “Maybe, let’s do some research and talk about what that might look like.”
One Response
This is a really good step-by-step write-up of how to access various options in Instagram, and this is coming from someone who’s written small-scale technical documentation. Excellent work.