The updates enable users to control their preferences, establish limits on the app usage time, and monitor the younger audience using improved parental controls.
The recent updates to Instagram are geared towards teens, introducing the ‘Quiet mode’ feature to help manage time spent on the app. This feature allows users to limit their engagement with friends and followers. When enabled, notifications are turned off, the user’s activity status changes to ‘In quiet mode’, and an auto-reply is sent to anyone who directs messages to them.
Users have the flexibility to customize the hours they want the feature to be on, and once it is turned off, they will receive a summary of missed notifications. While ‘Quiet mode’ is available for anyone to use, it is mainly aimed at teens who may spend a significant amount of time on Instagram late at night. The updates also include new tools for managing preferences and parental supervision.
The feature is currently accessible to users in the US, United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Instagram is working towards expanding its availability to additional countries in the near future.
Customizing Content Recommendations
With the new updates, users now have the option to hide multiple pieces of content in Explore that they don’t find interesting all at once. Instagram will also prevent showing this type of content in other places where it makes recommendations, such as Reels, Search, and more. Additionally, users can now hide comments and DMs containing specific words, this applies to recommended posts that they might see across Instagram. Users can add words, hashtags, emojis, or lists of words they want to avoid, such as “fashion” or “recipes”, and Instagram will stop recommending content with those words in captions or hashtags. Users can find this feature in the “Hidden Words” section of Privacy settings.”
New Parental Control Features
Alongside giving teens more options to manage their time and experiences on Instagram, the new updates also aim to enhance parents’ visibility into their teens’ choices.
Parents can now access their teen’s Instagram settings, including privacy and account settings. If the teen makes any changes to the settings, the parent will receive a notification, allowing them to discuss the changes with their teen. Additionally, parents can now view the accounts that their teen has blocked.