New from Meta to enhance the safety and well-being of adolescents on Instagram and VR
Meta has just shared the most recent efforts to promote the safety of adolescent minors on some of the company’s social platforms, with the invaluable help of parents and guardians, for whom new resources and tools are also made available.
The company indicates that it begins to implement parental supervision tools on all Quest headsets, increase parental supervision tools on Instagram, as well as incorporate a tool on Instagram that tries to encourage minors to vary types of content if they spend any time focused on a specific one, ruling out issues related to appearance.
In addition to these tools, through the Family Center educational center, new articles are arriving aimed at parents and guardians belonging to organizations such as ParentZone, Media Smarts, National Association for Media Literacy Education and Cyberbullying Research Center, which address aspects such as the way in which target children to talk about different topics online, connect safely, and more.
Using Virtual Reality and Instagram in a supervised way
On top of the parental supervision tools and resources on all Oculus Quest headsets, parents and guardians will have a dashboard from which they can approve the download or purchase of an app that is blocked by default by IARC rating, block specific apps that are deemed not suitable for minors, see all the applications that the minor has, see the time they spend using the device, know the list of friends, and block access to PC content from the headphones.
For all this to work, parents or guardians and adolescent minors they must link their accounts and agree to it, and the minor must initiate the linking process.
for instagram
In regards to expanding parental monitoring tools and resources on Instagram, now parents and guardians can also send invitations to their minors to start the supervision tools, when until now it was only possible in the opposite direction.
Parents and guardians can also set specific times of the day or week for their teens to use Instagram, and get more information when teens report accounts or posts, including who was reported and the type of report.
For now, these tools and resources are already available on Instagram in the US, although throughout this month they will also reach the United Kingdom, Japan, Australia, Ireland, Canada, France and Germany, with a view to expanding to other markets. before the end of the year.
And on the other hand, teens who repeatedly scroll through the same type of content in the Explore section will receive a notification to switch to another type of content.
According to Goal:
We designed this new feature because research suggests that nudges can be effective in helping people, especially teens, become more aware of how they’re using social media right now.
Reminders are also coming soon for teens to turn on the recently released Take a Break feature when they’ve spent appreciable time on their Reels walls.
According to Goal:
Reminders will feature Reels developed by young creators like @foodwithsoy, @abraxaxs, and @mayasideas sharing their own tips for taking a break and why it’s a good idea to step away from social media for a bit
Reminders are in testing in the US, UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, with an official launch in these and other markets later this summer.
Lastly, addressing Young U.S. creators will be encouraged to create more content aimed at inspiring teens and supporting their well-being, also having the support of experts, who will guide them in the way in which to develop their creativity.
More information: Target
