Expert’s warning as Instagram rolls out new rules for teens

As soon as Instagram announced it was establishing new Teen Accounts for users under 16, young Australians started cooking up plans to get around the rules.
It’s an issue many parents feel ill-equipped to tackle, but Australian Psychological Society President Dr Catriona Davis-McCabe says the solution begins with an open conversation.
“The effectiveness and the appropriateness of any of these new features are going to depend on how they are implemented and how families discuss them,” she tells 9honey Parenting.
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“Ideally I’d like to see the parent oversight being in collaboration with the teenager … rather than creating a sense of constant surveillance. We have to be able to trust our kids.”
The new Teen Accounts are intended to better protect young people from inappropriate content or unsafe interactions online by introducing stricter rules around who they can connect with and what content they consume.
New limits on Teen Accounts also restrict how long young people can spend on Instagram and allow parents to monitor who teens message, but not the content of those messages.
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All of these new features are meant to safeguard young Instagram users from harm and Davis-McCabe says getting teenagers to understand that is the first step to preventing them from breaking the rules.
“You know what teenagers are like, always finding their way around rules and breaking rules,” she says.
“I think the key there is for the parents to actually discuss openly what their concerns are and why they think this is a good idea.”
That means actually sitting down with kids and explaining the dangers unrestricted social media access may pose, from being exposed to inappropriate content, to being targeted by predators.
It may be a confronting or uncomfortable conversation to have, but it will help young people understand where these new limitations have come from and why they’re important.
“Parents need to hone in on education so that the child understands what this rule is about and why these changes are to benefit them,” Davis-McCabe says.
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The second step is for parents and children to work collaboratively to decide how the new rules will be implemented in their family.
Teen Accounts come with a number of built-in protections, as well as optional features that can further limit the account, all of which are controlled by parents through the app’s Parental Supervision feature.
Davis-McCabe encourages parents to decide what level of protection is right for their children’s individual needs with that child’s input, lest they try to skirt the rules.
“What we’d like to see is not a lack of trust in the child or trying to inhibit the child’s movements and what they’re doing, but actually just working with the child,” she says.
“When there’s too much over-control and too much surveillance, that is going to have a negative impact on the child.”
She cautions parents against using the new restrictions “punitively” or using them to surveil their children online.
Instead, she wants to see parents work with teens to find a balanced approach that allows young people some freedom on social media while still protecting them from potential harm, and discourages teens from going rogue on Instagram.
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