The teenagers of this generation may be smart and tech-savvy, but they’re still teens. Instagram recognizes this, so it rolled out its Supervision feature to help parents and guardians keep an eye on their teens’ accounts.
Continue reading to learn more about this feature and how you can enable it to supervise certain aspects of your child’s Instagram activity.
What Is Supervision on Instagram?
Supervision is a parental control feature introduced by Instagram in October 2022. It allows parents and guardians to monitor their children’s activity on the app.
Instagram has come under fire over the years for its failure to protect children on the app. Child advocates and lawmakers in the US have strongly criticized the social media network owned by Meta over its plans to launch a kids' version of Instagram.
Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen cemented those concerns when she revealed that Meta’s apps cause harm to the children who use them. Instagram has since halted its plans to launch an Instagram app for kids and, instead, focused on ways to make the app safer for children. Supervision is one of the ways the popular social media platform is hoping to achieve that.
How Supervision Works
We already know you can use Instagram's parental controls to keep your child safe. But there's another form of parental control that lets you monitor your child's Instagram account—at least somewhat. Supervision is built into the Instagram app, unlike other supervision apps. It allows parents and guardians to supervise teens aged 13 through 17. However, it has its limitations.
Supervision is not mandatory—parents, guardians, and teens have a choice to use it. Parents and guardians can’t supervise teens without them opting in. Neither does Instagram opt them in by default because of the age they listed when signing up.
Instead, teens are invited by their parents or guardians to be supervised, but they can decline if they don’t want to. Instagram’s Supervision feature doesn’t report all of a teen’s activity to their parents, but it notifies them in the following instances:
- When a teen submits a report to Instagram, like a report for harassment.
- When someone follows their profile or when they follow a new profile.
Supervision also allows parents and guardians to monitor how much time their teens spend on Instagram.
How to Enable Supervision on Instagram
It’s easy to enable Supervision on Instagram. Just remember that the user you want to supervise must be between the ages of 13 and 17. Here’s how to get started:
- Open the Instagram app on your phone.
- Tap your Profile icon in the bottom-right corner of the screen.
- Now tap the three-dot Menu icon in the top-right corner of the screen.
- Tap Settings, then tap Supervision.
- Choose Add account, followed by the Create Invitation button.
- Instagram will create an invitation link. Find your child’s contact from the recent contacts previewed, or tap the platform on which you want to send them the link. Alternatively, you can swipe up and tap Copy, then paste the link into the relevant chat.
- Send the invite.
You're all set. Your teen now has to accept the invitation by tapping the link, should they be okay with you supervising their activity on Instagram. However, they can also choose to ignore it and nothing will change.
That’s because both parties have to be willing to participate in Supervision on Instagram. This allows the teen to maintain some privacy while building trust with their parents.
Help Keep Your Child Safe on Instagram
While Instagram’s Supervision feature is a step in the right direction, there’s still a long way to go in the effort to keep kids safe on the app.
As a parent, you can use Supervision as a tool to monitor some of their Instagram account activities.