Instagram Puts New Restrictions on Teens. Will They Work?

Instagram this week introduced mandatory accounts for teens that increase privacy protections, allow for parental supervision and limit notifications during nighttime hours.

The company said new and existing users under the age of 18 will be automatically registered for what Instagram is calling “teen accounts.”

The move comes 16 months after U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy warned in an advisory that excessive social media use could pose “serious risks” to children’s mental health. Instagram has also faced pressure from some federal and state lawmakers who want to regulate social media use by children and teens.

Experts who spoke to ABC News had differing opinions on whether Meta’s new restrictions for teen users will effectively mitigate the risks young Instagram users face.

Some experts applauded the guardrails as a significant, if insufficient, step toward preventing teens from being harmed. Others said the lack of solid account age verification measures would allow young users to bypass the rules, rendering the new settings largely pointless.

In response to ABC News’ request for comment, Meta said it is increasing its efforts to verify the age of teenage users.

“We are requiring teens to verify their age in new ways. For example, if they try to create a new account with an adult’s birth date, we will require them to verify their age in order to use the account,” Meta spokesperson Dani Lever told ABC News.

“We also want to do more to proactively find accounts belonging to teens, even if the account includes an adult’s date of birth. We’re building the technology to proactively find these teens and put them in the same protections that a teen’s account settings offer,” Lever added.

One expert said these restrictions can go too far, limiting teenagers’ freedom of expression and subjecting them to the scrutiny of parents with whom they may disagree on fundamental aspects of their identity.

“We need to be aware of the content that platforms are showing kids and how that can shape attitudes and behaviors offline,” Jon-Patrick Allem, a professor of public health at Rutgers University, told ABC News. Allem added that he would reserve judgment until the changes were subject to further scrutiny.

The new teen accounts were announced by Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri in a live interview Tuesday on “Good Morning America.”

“It’s an automated security suite for teens that tries to proactively address the top concerns we’ve heard from parents about teens online,” Mosseri told GMA. “Things like who can contact them, what content they’re seeing, how much time they’re spending on their device… all without the need for a parent to get involved.”

As Mosseri told “GMA,” new teens will be automatically enrolled in teen accounts, while existing teens’ accounts will be switched to the new model within 60 days.

The company said new accounts will default to users under 18 being placed on a private account, while users under 16 will need parental consent to switch to a public account. With a private account, teens will have to specifically accept new followers, and only those followers will be able to see and interact with their content.

Instagram says the new accounts will allow teens to choose age-appropriate topics they want to see more of on Instagram, such as sports or art. Parents will be able to see what topics their children choose.

Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at New York University and author of “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness,” expressed lukewarm appreciation for those limitations in a post on X on Tuesday.

“I’m cautiously optimistic about the new Meta teen accounts,” Haidt said. “Most of the social media issues will continue to plague teens on Instagram. But this is a good start, and I hope this is just the first of many steps for Meta.”

Paul Barrett, a professor at New York University Law School and deputy director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, acknowledged that some of Instagram’s changes will mitigate harm to teens on the platform, but added that the move will likely have little impact in the absence of better age-verification measures to ensure teens sign up for Teen Accounts.

“This is a point in the right direction,” Barrett told ABC News. But he added: “None of this will make much difference unless the company does something about age and identity verification. All of the other requirements are going to be ineffective if kids are just pretending to be adults.”

At least one expert said the changes could do some harm by imposing too many restrictions on teenage Instagram users. For example, a child’s parents may have different views on basic identity issues, such as whether to believe in God, Eric Goldman, a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law who studies content moderation, told ABC News. The increased parental oversight on the new accounts could allow such parents to limit their child’s personal development, he added.

“Parents can have norms about certain behaviors for their children,” Goldman said. “That can take away their ability to express themselves and explore themselves.”

He added that overall, some children will benefit from these changes while others will be harmed.

“Groups of kids have different needs,” Goldman said. “If it’s a one-size-fits-all solution, some kids are likely to benefit and others are likely to be harmed,” but he added that Instagram has the right to make changes it deems appropriate.

In response to this criticism, Meta said it has engaged with relevant stakeholders to find a balance between user experience and parent engagement.

“We consulted with parents, teens, and experts as we created Teen Accounts. These changes give parents the power to decide whether teens under 16 can change built-in settings,” said Meta’s Lever. “This allows teens to use social media to connect, discover, and explore, while parents can feel confident that their teens are protected.”

“If Instagram is taking this approach because it believes it is best for its users, I support its freedom to set the rules and approach that is right for it,” Goldman said.

Katie Kindelan of ABC News contributed to this report.