Meta Announces New Features that Gives Parents More Insight into What Their Teens are Doing on Social Media

On Tuesday, Meta announced new features across its social media platforms that help parents monitor what their teens are up to online.

The features include parental controls on Messenger, suggestions for teens to step away from Facebook after 20 minutes and urges young, late-night Instagrammers to stop scrolling, according to CNN.

Considering 13 is the minimum age for most social media sites, safeguards and monitoring tools are extremely important to make sure teens are using the apps responsibly and staying safe. 

The new Messenger feature allows parents to see how much time their teens are spending on the chat tool. They also receive updates on their contact list and if their teen reports someone. Additionally, parents can now directly contact their teens through their notifications, if their accounts are synced.

Some other new features aim to prevent teens from spending too much time on social media. Facebook will now encourage users to step away from the app after 20 minutes. Instagram has a similar feature that encourages teens to exit the app if they are scrolling Reels videos for a long period of time during nighttime hours.