NORFOLK, Va. — Parents, listen up! Instagram will be using artificial intelligence to detect any teens pretending to be adults.
Meta made the announcement this month.
“I think it’s a good idea,” said Dr. Sarah Williams, Psychotherapist.
If an account has been determined to have a teen user, Instagram will immediately switch it to a teen account.
That will enable private messages to be restricted to people they are already following. Teens will also receive notifications if they are on the app for more than 60 minutes, and sleep mode will be switched on.
Dr. Williams tells News 3 that young minds still need time to develop, and overexposure to what’s being put out on social media is causing more harm than good.
“Until their brain has had an opportunity to develop and to develop those cognitive skills that are necessary to ensure their own safety in situational awareness, I think it is a smart move, and I think that it is important for parents to have that awareness as well,” explained Dr. Williams.
To help parents with teens who may feel that restrictions on their social media are overbearing, Dr. Williams suggests sitting down and creating a social media contract that allows your teen to be a part of the plan.
“This is an agreement between the parent and the child, where the child has some control and feels some level of autonomy as well as the parent having some understanding of what the child is actually willing to agree to, and any violation within those boundaries of the contract may have a consequence.”
