Back-to-School Digital Reset: How Instagram’s Teen Accounts Are Giving Dear Media Hosts Peace of Mind This September

Sponsored by Meta

Here’s the thing about parenting in 2025: Your teen is probably using around 40 different apps, creating content, connecting with friends, and building communities in ways that would have been impossible when we were their age. They’re jumping between Instagram and Snapchat and TikTok and apps you’ve never heard of—and most of the time, they just want to share memes with their friends and have a laugh.

Most of us are trying to figure out digital parenting on the fly, without a playbook. We didn’t grow up with Instagram DMs or livestreams or the constant connectivity that’s second nature to our kids. So when it comes time to set boundaries, we’re often winging it.

But what if there was a way to give your teen the freedom to connect and create while automatically building in the safety measures you’d want them to have? This September, as families reset their routines for a new school year, parents finally have tools that meet them where they actually are—busy, concerned, and looking for solutions that work in the real world.

Instagram Teen Accounts: Dear Media Hosts Talk Digital Parenting

Why does digital parenting feel so overwhelming?

“Our kids’ safety, especially online, is one of our top priorities at the moment because it just feels like such a big scary place online,” Whitney Port shares on With Whit. “Sometimes I feel like as an adult, I wasn’t even taught the right guardrails or safety measures because everything was just being built as I was becoming an adult.”

Port’s sentiment echoes what many parents experience—the challenge of guiding their children through a digital landscape that didn’t exist in their own childhoods. Caroline Stanbury, host of Uncut and Uncensored, puts it bluntly about managing three teenagers: “It’s such a minefield.”

This feeling of being unprepared isn’t unique. Dani Austin Ramirez from De-Influenced captured this perfectly when discussing her three young children: “I truly feel like I’ve kind of grown up on the internet,” Austin shares. “I started when I was 19. I was a sophomore in my dorm room, which my frontal lobe was not fully developed at all. And now having three children, I’m like, to be honest, it just changes so fast. Like I don’t even know how to keep up with what all of the kids are doing.”

Even those who work in tech struggle with the rapid pace of change. As Antigone Davis, Meta’s VP and global head of safety, revealed on The Squeeze, teens today use approximately 40 apps on average. “I’m in tech and there are numerous apps that I have no idea what they are that teens are using,” she reassures host Tay Lautner. “I don’t know that I could name 40 different apps off the top of my head.”

The automatic safety net parents have been waiting for

Instagram’s response to these parental concerns comes in the form of Teen Accounts—protective settings that activate automatically for users under 18. The platform addresses the three primary worries parents consistently express: who can contact their teens, what content they see, and how much time they spend online.

“I think Instagram has the safest sort of connotation and it also feels like the cleanest,” Stanbury says. Her confidence isn’t misplaced. On The Squeeze, Davis says the data shows that over 97 percent of teens between ages 13-15 have stayed in Instagram’s more protective settings rather than trying to change them. “Sometimes people think teens don’t want those protections,” Davis says. “It turns out that most of them really do and welcome that kind of protection.”

Gabby Bernstein, host of Dear Gabby, was particularly struck by Meta’s comprehensive and holistic approach: “It’s definitely industry leading…it’s respectful of the [teen]. It’s caring for the [teen’s] mind.”

Sleep mode and time limits

The back-to-school season brings unique challenges around screen time management. Parents need tools that support focus during homework hours and ensure healthy sleep patterns that are crucial for academic performance.

Instagram’s Teen Accounts include built-in Time Limit Reminders, which are set by default to 60 minutes per day, along with a “Sleep Mode” that automatically mutes notifications from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. and sends auto-replies to DMs. Parents can even go a step further through their supervision tools and completely block access during specific hours—whether that’s during school time or family dinner.

Practical Tips for School-Year Success:

For Homework Hours:

For teens under 16, parents can set complete Instagram blocks during designated study time. Unlike regular time limit reminders that teens can click through, these blocks require parental approval to override once parental supervision is enabled. “You can go a step further and you can just completely block Instagram if you’re the parent for, you know, certain periods during the day,” explains Tara Hopkins, Instagram’s global director of public policy. “So it could be a complete block at night, it could be a complete block during school hours.”

For School-Night Sleep:

The automatic sleep mode between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. ensures notifications don’t disrupt rest, but parents can extend this window during school nights when earlier bedtimes are necessary. “You can make it a bit more purposeful,” Hopkins explains to Port on With Whit about setting reasonable—and appropriate—time limits for teens of different ages. “You can’t go to your doctor or a therapist and say, what’s the amount of time that my 14-year-old should be spending on social media? Because there’s no conclusive evidence.” What is true, notes Hopkins, is that parents should establish early good sleep hygiene. “There is more evidence around sleep being really important to teens… teens are developing and they’re growing. And their brains are developing at extraordinary rates. And so actually being able to have good sleep and undisturbed sleep is really important,” Hopkins adds.

For Focus During School:

Parents can monitor who their teens are messaging with over the past seven days through the supervision feature, helping initiate conversations with their teens to identify if school drama is spilling into DMs and affecting concentration, for example.

The key insight from the Dear Media conversations was flexibility. Different families need different approaches, and the tools are designed to adapt rather than impose one-size-fits-all restrictions.

For parents who want more control, the supervision tools allow complete blocking rather than just reminders. “You can blame us,” Hopkins tells parents. “You can say, look, you know, I’d be okay with it. But Instagram doesn’t, so it’s turned off between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m.”

Real conversations from real parents

The Dear Media podcast series revealed how these digital boundaries can naturally integrate into family discussions. Port shared her approach with her eight-year-old: “I feel like something that I’m learning through this, which I feel like I knew, but it’s just being cemented by our conversation, is just how these conversations have to start happening even before 13.”

Stanbury emphasized an open dialogue policy in her family. “That is an unwritten rule in my house. If you bring it to me, there will be no consequence for that because I’m so happy they shared it with me, and I will help you.”

For Port, Meta is helping her cut through the noise and navigate the crowded parenting advice landscape with real evidence-based strategies. “Every family has their own rules, and that’s the hard part is like we have to continue to not judge…we all need to tune into what feels best to us,” Port shares.

Dani Austin Ramirez shared her perspective on the balance between protection and preparation: “I agree with having that transparency with your child…because to be honest, I feel like nowadays it’s like parents, like we’re naive and we don’t even mean to be. It’s just like you just don’t even know the possibilities of what your child could find.”

Tay Lautner, while not yet a parent herself, offered valuable perspective from someone who grew up during the rise of social media: “I just can’t imagine being a teen right now, like being in high school and having the internet be so involved in everything and every day, it’s kind of, it is scary. So it’s really awesome that Meta is taking those precautions.”

Jordan Ramirez, cohost of De-Influenced with wife Dani Austin, brought humor to the challenge, reflecting on their MySpace days: “We were raised on the streets of MySpace…Thank God MySpace is gone.”

The conversation starters that make it easier

Meta’s Family Center provides research-backed conversation starters that can seamlessly integrate into back-to-school discussions. Questions like “When you want to learn something new online, where do you go?” or “Have you ever found an opportunity to help another person online?” shift the focus from restriction to purposeful use.

As Bernstein says of her parenting style as a spiritual teacher: “Curiosity has to be the leader…and so just being engaging in conversation and just using curiosity as a tool [rather than] placing blame or shame.”

Hopkins confirms their approach: “Absolutely. We brought in so many experts to help us because it’s important we are sending out the right type of advice to parents.”

Adding to its potential impact, Bernstein suggests encouraging conversations around using the platform for kindness. “I want to do a kindness movement with children on social. It can give kids such a positive feedback loop by learning, wow, that thing I just posted made someone feel good. Kids want to be seen, right? So if they are seen for making people feel good, think about that light that you’re seen in.”

How is Meta approaching industry-wide change?

The Teen Accounts initiative represents more than just one platform’s response to parental concerns. Meta is pushing for broader industry changes, including app store-level parental approval for all app downloads—a move that would give parents visibility into those 40+ apps teens typically use.

“We want them to hold that piece,” Antigone Davis explained about working with Apple and Google. “And then we think every app should have the kind of safeguards that we have.”

Over 57 million teens are now in the Teen Accounts experience, as Hopkins shared with Caroline Baudino on Coming In Hot, with the number growing as Instagram Teen Accounts rolls out globally.

What sets Meta’s approach apart, as Bernstein reflected on Dear Gabby, is their counter-intuitive philosophy. “The apps want you to stick around, all apps want you to stick around, but you guys are actually encouraging people to stop,” Bernstein says. Hopkins echoes this idea: “We’re not sitting here thinking, ‘How can we keep people more on Instagram,’ we’re thinking about when they are with us on Instagram, that they’re having a meaningful experience, or getting some joy and happiness and they’re connecting, and then they go off to do something else.”

Making the digital reset part of your September routine

As families establish new school year rhythms, the digital component deserves the same intentional attention as academic goals. The conversations don’t have to be confrontational—in fact, they work better when they’re not.

Hopkins shares practical advice from her own parenting experience: “It’s often much easier to have a chat with your teen when you’re in the car…because they’re usually sitting next to you rather than kind of confrontationally in front of you.”

The key is starting these conversations before problems arise. “What you don’t really want is that your teen has a bad experience then comes to you,” Hopkins says. “What you actually want is to have the conversation with the teenager when they’re just beginning to [or] probably before they start using social media to set the ground rules.”

Peace of mind for the school year ahead

Perhaps the most reassuring aspect of Instagram’s Teen Accounts is how seamlessly they work. Parents don’t need to become technology experts or spend hours configuring settings. The protections activate automatically, and teens need parental permission to make them less strict if they’re under 16. It captures what many families need most: the confidence that while they’re focusing on academic success, basic digital safety measures are already in place.

“Something we wanted to do was give parents that peace, putting them at the center but taking the pressure away from them. Parents feel so much pressure, and this is just one app. Instagram is just one of so many apps that young people are using and we want parents to know that when their teenager comes to this app, we’re taking the pressure off them,” Hopkins tells Bernstein.

This September, that balance between guidance and independence has robust support. The digital reset doesn’t require parents to become tech experts—just engaged, curious partners helping their teens navigate both online and offline worlds successfully.

For access to more helpful tools and expert guidance, parents can visit https://familycenter.meta.com.

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