Children’s health has been a key issue for us since the founding of Women 2 Women, and the impacts of social media on children’s mental health has been well-studied. Per the department of Health and Human Services, “Children and adolescents who spend more than 3 hours a day on social media face double the risk of mental health problems including experiencing symptoms of depression and anxiety. [...] When asked about the impact of social media on their body image, 46% of adolescents aged 13-17 said social media makes them feel worse.”
We’re happy to see that Instagram is rolling out a host of new regulations to protect children and young adults from these risks. Per the New York Times, Meta (the parent company of Instagram) will:
- “Continue restricting teenagers on Instagram from being able to send direct messages to people they do not already follow.”
- “Show them less content in the main Instagram feed from people they do not follow and prevent them from being tagged by the accounts of other people with whom they are not connected.”
- Enable parents to “see the topics of posts their child has chosen to see more of, as well as the accounts of the people their child recently messaged. To protect user privacy, though, parents will not be able to view the content of their children’s messages.”
Social media is such a thorny issue–for better or for worse, it’s one of the main ways people connect nowadays, so it seems unfair to restrict children from this entirely, but all adults have a responsibility to safeguard the mental health of the young people under their care. We’re pleased to see Instagram stepping up and becoming part of the conversation about child safety.