Parents get new tools to monitor their kids' use of Instagram and Meta Quest 2

But will your kids be okay with it?

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Meta announced that from today (June 14) parents in the UK will be able to supervise their children’sInstagramandQuest 2accounts, such as approving purchases, scheduling breaks, and more.

If you’ve been wanting to grasp some understanding of how your kids use Meta’s apps oniOSandAndroid, thenew tools launchingwill be able to give you an idea of what they look at, or what they’re trying to buy every day.

When the features appear in users' Instagram Settings section, you’ll be able to do the following:

There’s also supervision for VR apps on the Meta Quest 2. Initiallyannounced in March, users can approve purchases, check the screen time of the headset from theOculusapp, view their friends list, and more.

There’s plenty to be found here too, such as one feature where it encourages teens to step away from certain topics on Instagram, further looking after their wellbeing.

These controls are an encouraging step from Meta to give parents more control over what their children see - but teens may not be happy with these new features.

Analysis: The cringe could be too much for some

Creating a safe experience for teens on a social platform has become increasingly important as the years have passed, especially with how easy it’s become to create an account on Instagram and other social media platforms.

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But it’s a two-way street when it comes to controls like this. Kids want to feel independent, especially in their teens, and so there may be some pushback to the controls that parents will be able to use.

To Meta’s credit, all of these new features are useful and fully justified in the fake content that’s filling most of the social platforms in recent years. But the next step may be to show teens, through the Explore tab perhaps, that it’s okay to grant their parents some control over their accounts.

However, if you’re a parent struggling to find a gift for your son or daughter, but you want to make sure that they’re looking at the right content, there are somegreat Quest 2 dealsbefore the school break.

Daryl had been freelancing for 3 years before joining TechRadar, now reporting on everything software-related. In his spare time, he’s written a book, ‘The Making of Tomb Raider’. His second book, ‘50 Years of Boss Fights’, came out in 2024, with a third book coming in 2025. He also has a newsletter called ‘Springboard’. He’s usually found playing games old and new on his Steam Deck, Nintendo Switch, and MacBook Pro. If you have a story about an updated app, one that’s about to launch, or just anything Software-related, drop him a line.

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