To mark the occasion, the platform reminds teens of the tools available to help keep them safe on its platforms.

The company also gave resources available for parents and guardians on the Family Centre and training available like My Digital World, which provides accessible learning modules and resources to build skills for a digital world.

Helping Teens focus and set boundaries

Meta work closely with experts in mental health, child psychology, digital literacy and more to build features and tools so people can connect online safely and responsibly.

Meta has made considerable strides in this space over the past year, including:

This was done with features like 'Take a Break' and 'Nudges' that encourage teens to both spend time away from Instagram and explore different topics while on Instagram.

Meta adds that it is also removing more content that violates its policies and making potentially sensitive content more difficult to find.

The group also gave tips for teens when navigating its platforms:
  1. Build positive online habits with features like 'Take a Break' — spend more meaningful time online using features like 'Take a Break' and 'Nudges' that encourage you to spend time away from Instagram and explore different topics while on Instagram.
  2. Control what you see on Explore in settings — you can now choose to hide multiple pieces of content in Explore that you are not interested in.
  3. Prevent potentially offensive comments with 'Hidden words' — a tool which, when turned on, will automatically filter DM requests containing offensive words, phrases and emojis, so you never have to see them.
  4. Protect your account and turn on two-factor authentication — One of the most important things you can do to protect your account is to turn on two-factor authentication.

Supporting parents

Meta is committed to supporting parents and guardians. It recently launched its Family Center, which has educational resources from leading youth and safety, privacy and well-being experts on how to converse with your teens about healthy and safe online habits.

Meta has also been developing parental controls that help parents and teens navigate their time online together. This was designed to strike the right balance between giving parents oversight while preserving teens' privacy and autonomy and encouraging offline conversations about online habits.

These tools allow parents and guardians to see the following:
  • who their teen follows and who follows them
  • when their teen shares, they've reported or blocked someone
  • when their teen changes any of the default privacy settings, and
  • how much time their teen is spending on Instagram, set daily limits and schedule breaks when they don't want their teen to be using the app.

Meta's vision for the Family Center is to allow parents and guardians to help their teens manage experiences across Meta technologies, all from one central place.

In the meantime, here are tips for parents and guardians to get the conversation started:
  1. Take the time to talk to your teen about what they get up to online.
  2. Use open-ended questions to start conversations about what your teen enjoys online.
  3. Choose your moment and talk to them when you're doing something together.
  4. Share your own experiences and talk about your online life.
  5. Be open and ensure your teen knows they can speak to you about any issues.

You can read more on our Instagram Parents Guide.

For more information, visit www.about.meta.com. You can also follow Meta on Facebook, Twitter or on Instagram.