Instagram has recently launched a new parent oriented section of its “well being” site today that has been designed to guide parents through the app and help them talk about it with their kids. The site basically just walks parents through privacy settings and content controls, like how to make an account public or private or how to block accounts.
All these features are now quite old, but it’s definitely possible that parents and teens had no idea they existed. It isn’t extremely easy to navigate to your privacy settings page. The company also suggests some teen accounts that parents could suggest to their kids as positive role models and offers some prompts to get an Instagram conversation started.
Now the website isn’t all that neat, given that these are all features that have existed for some time, but at least the company is trying to help parents navigate the online world. More than anything else, it makes it clear that Instagram has a profound effect on teens’ social lives, both positively and negatively. Yes, they can interact with friends and post about their cool lives, but it can also make them feel bad about themselves and lead to bullying. Maybe some parental wisdom can help.
