To help achieve this, we consult with experts and families themselves to hear directly about their experiences and insights, and what more they’d like to see from platforms like ours. We want to empower parents to have their say, help them understand all the safety & wellbeing tools available to them and their teens, and make sure that our approach meets their needs and expectations.
That’s why last month we hosted Screen Smart in Brussels, an interactive conversation between parents, safety experts and Meta, as we seek to navigate and improve teens' online experiences.
In front of an audience of parents, I had the pleasure of speaking to a panel of experts, all of whom brought their own unique perspectives: Niels Van Paemel from ChildFocus, Karen Linten from MediaWijs, Loulou João from Meta and ThinkYoung’s Youth Network, and Leo Cendrowicz from The Brussels Times and i newspaper.
Our expert panellists discussed the opportunities and, importantly, the challenges of social media, and shared helpful tips for parents navigating the digital world with their families. One thing that came through strongly was the need for open communication between teens and parents, and for parents to show an interest in the online life of their teen, in the same way they would do in their offline life. At Meta, we want to support parents to feel empowered to have those conversations.
As a parent of teens and preteens myself, I know that’s not always easy, which is why we’ve developed parental supervision tools that are specifically designed to help prompt and facilitate these conversations. For example, while either a teen or their parent can send the invitation to start parental supervision, the other person has to accept. That means an offline conversation has to take place, to build trust and act as a starting point to discuss online habits. As part of the supervision experience, parents can also be notified when their teen shares they’ve blocked or reported someone, giving the parent the opportunity to check in with their teen.
Our primary goal for Screen Smart was to get feedback from parents themselves. Co-designing new tools and features with experts and families is key to our approach, and we’ve held similar sessions in different countries around the world.
We asked parents for their unique perspectives and experiences, and together discussed potential safety tools that could help meet their needs. From age assurance to parental supervision, we asked attendees about what more we could do to help create a safe and supportive environment for their families.
The parents and safety experts taking part agreed that parents should have some involvement or oversight into their family’s digital life, while acknowledging the need to balance important considerations, including the privacy and autonomy of their teen. Parents know what’s best for their teens, so it’s vital to hear directly from them about their experiences, and what more they’d like to see from us. As with all our Design Jams, we share the insights and feedback we hear directly with our product teams - including those focused on wellbeing - so that we can continue to build new tools, and iterate on existing ones, that directly respond to the needs of our community.
Today, we have more than 30 features across our apps to support teens and their families - from Parental Supervision to Quiet Mode and Take A Break, which help teens manage their time online and set boundaries with friends and followers.
Visit our Family Center to learn more about our supervision tools and access resources from leading experts.
Tara Hopkins, Global Director of Public Policy, Instagram
