Instagram will now 'nudge' teens to log off late at night

Instagram will now use “nighttime nudges” to urge teenagers to log off the platform at night.

The feature is an effort by the company to help teens manage their time on the app and not stay up all night scrolling.

"Sleep is important, particularly for young people," Instagram’s parent company Meta said in a blog post.

When teens spend more than 10 minutes in places like Reels or Direct Messages late at night, notifications will remind them that it’s late and encourage them to close the app.

The feature is the latest update to Instagram’s parental supervision tools offered by Meta, which also owns Facebook. Supervision tools will also be added to Facebook’s Messenger, which will allow parents to set scheduled breaks, view their teens' contact list, and see who they've blocked.

Meta first announced in June that it was launching more tools for parents to monitor their children's activities on its social media platforms. This came as the company faced scrutiny over whether its apps were safe for children.

Meta says it will continue to add parental tools in 2024.

"Over the next year, we'll add more features to Parental Supervision on Messenger so parents can help their teens better manage their time and interactions, while still balancing their privacy as these tools function in both unencrypted and end-to-end encrypted chats," said Meta.

SEE MORE: Meta adds parental supervision tools to Facebook, Instagram