Parental controls are offered by almost every popular media network, but many parents are unaware of them. Less than 10% of teens on Instagram had enabled parental control settings by the end of 2022 and only a single-digit percentage of parents had used those controls, according to a Washington Post report earlier this year.
In response to Congressional concerns And rights groups When it comes to the potential harm that social media does to young users, tech companies have long argued that the parental controls they offer protect children. But because parental controls aren’t enabled by default, they don’t really protect users unless parents enable them.
Each platform approaches parental controls a little differently, but most start by allowing parents to monitor who their teen communicates with. Some social media platforms then take it a step further by allowing parents to intervene in how their teen uses an app.
TikTok seems to be the platform that gives parents the most control over their teens’ use of the app. The ByteDance-owned company has had to deal with a thorough examination legislators, probably even more so than any other platform on this list. In an attempt to convince lawmakers, the app offers much more advanced parental controls than Instagram, Snapchat and others.
And while most social media platforms offer some form of parental controls, some have been doing so for longer than others. Meta has come under scrutiny for its potential negative impact on teens and younger users for more than a decadeThis is why there have been parental controls for many years, while a platform like Discord has been able to go unnoticed and only had recently introduced parental controls.
Before we get to controls, it’s important to recognize that teens can also create secret accounts, and most parental controls on social media rely on communication between parents and their teen.
We’ve created this guide to make it easier for parents to navigate and understand the parental controls offered by the most popular social media companies, and we’ve detailed how they vary from platform to platform.
How Instagram Parental Controls Work
Meta-owned Instagram offers parental controls through its Family center Offer. The social network offers users the opportunity to create a “supervised account” for teenagers aged 13 to 17. Both the teenager and the parent must agree to participate.
In Family Center, parents and guardians can monitor their teen’s account by seeing how much time they spend on the social network. Parents can intervene in their teen’s use of the app by setting daily time limits or adding scheduled breaks. With this feature, parents can ensure that their teen only spends a certain amount of time on the app and does not use it during homework or school hours.
They can also view their teen’s subscribers and followers lists to monitor who can view their posts and send them messages. Parents can also see all the reports their teen has sent on Instagram.
Additionally, parents can review their teen’s account privacy settings and sensitive content settings, as well as their direct messaging settings. They can discuss these settings with their teen to make sure they’re protected.
TikTok offers robust parental controls
Like Instagram, TikTok allows parents to link their account to their teen’s through its “Family Coupling” feature. After that, parents can decide how much time their teen can spend on the app each day. They can set their teen’s screen time limit and get a summary of how much time their teen spends on the app.
The app also allows parents to turn off push notifications for their teens (TikTok turns off notifications for teens ages 13-15 from 9 p.m. to 8 a.m. by default). Parents can also choose to pause their teens’ notifications for a custom amount of time.
TikTok allows parents to take an additional step that the other platforms on this list don’t: they can restrict certain types of content. They have the ability to select keywords or hashtags to exclude certain content from their teen’s For You and Following feeds. They can also enable a “Restricted Mode” that will automatically limit their teen’s exposure to inappropriate or inappropriate content.
Additionally, parents can decide whether their teen can search for videos, hashtags, or live videos. Additionally, they can control whether their teen’s account can be recommended to others on the app. Parents can decide who can comment on their teen’s videos and who can see content they like.
When it comes to private messages, parents can restrict who can message their teen or turn off direct messaging altogether. It’s worth noting that private messages on TikTok are only available to accounts owned by users aged 16 and over.
How to Set Up Snapchat Parental Controls
Snapchat offers parents access to a “Family Center” This allows them to monitor some of their teen’s activities on the app. Parents must create their own Snapchat account and then connect it to their teen’s.
Once parents have linked the two accounts, they can see who their child is friends with on Snapchat. They can also get a glimpse of who they’ve messaged in the last seven days. Additionally, parents can see a full list of members of groups their teen has been active in over the past week.
It’s worth noting that parents cannot see messages shared by their teen; they can only see a list of people their teen has recently messaged.
Like on TikTok, parents can limit their teen’s ability to view sensitive content in Stories and Spotlight.
If parents find an account that concerns them, they can report it to Snapchat’s Trust and Safety team. However, unlike TikTok and Instagram, parents can’t monitor or limit the time their child spends on the app.
How to Set Up Discord Parental Controls
Discord offers a “Family Center” which allows parents to monitor their child’s activity on the platform. After signing up for Family Center, parents receive a weekly email summary with information about their teen’s activity. While parents can see which Discord communities and users their teens are talking to, they won’t be able to see the content of the conversations themselves.
Parents can see which friends their teen has recently added, including their display names and avatars. They can also see which users their teen has messaged or called in direct or group messages, including the time of the last message or call.
Additionally, parents can see which servers their teen has joined or participated in, including server icons and the number of server members.
Although Discord is regularly used by a young audience, the platform has until recently been largely left out of discussions around social media and its potential to harm children. In the past, Discord has been able to sit on the sidelines while Congress has probed Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and Facebook. However, Discord has been asked to testify in Latest Congressional Hearing on Child Exploitation.
How to use Facebook parental controls
You might be surprised to see Facebook on this list, as it is best known as a social network for older adults. However, while it may seem like teens don’t use Facebook, Recent reports suggests that young people still use the platform owned by Meta.
Parents can access Facebook’s supervision controls in the same place they monitor their child’s activity on Instagram. They can see how much time their teen has spent on the Facebook app each day over the past week, as well as the average time spent daily over the week. To control how much time their teen spends on the app, parents can set scheduled breaks.
Additionally, parents can see their teen’s Facebook friends, as well as their privacy settings and content preferences. They can also see the people and pages their teen has blocked.
Parental Controls in X
X, formerly known as Twitter, is the only social media platform on this list that doesn’t offer any parental controls. Although Twitter prohibits users under the age of 13 from accessing the platform, many lie about their age to join the platform.
Compared to other social media platforms, X is drowning in adult content. The company has also relaxed its policy hate speech filters Since its acquisition by Elon Musk, it has been significantly more lenient on cyberbullying and hateful content compared to the rest of the platforms on this list.
And while the majority of teens don’t use X, a 2023 Pew Research study found that 23% of teenagers have used the social networkwhich is still a significant number, especially on a platform that does nothing to protect them.
X, like Discord, has managed to fly under the radar when it comes to Congress’ concerns about protecting children online. However, The company participated in the congressional hearing on child exploitation earlier this year.
