I Had Big Questions About Kids & Social Media. So I Went Straight to Meta.

23:10Tara Hopkins:This is really important for all of us, but for teenagers. And so if a teenager does search for certain words, and I'm not going to say those, but like certain words in that in that space, they won't get any search results at all in this experience on Instagram and indeed they might be served up provided with a little bit of resource so give search for this word if you want to you could be connected with civil society a charity that that works in in that space but we go even stricter so even a word like gore you know it's not it's not a violating word per se in and of itself. But we do not want teenagers to to be searching and then finding a lot of gore because that's kind of graphic and could be upsetting.

23:56Tara Hopkins:And and particularly for those younger teens, we do not want them coming across this accidentally. So even a word like gore, if a teenager was to look at to search for that word, they won't find any search results on Instagram. So and the other thing we're going to continually do is if a parent is in the supervisory experience on Instagram, we're actually asking those parents when they report something to us, we are prioritizing their report. That's the first thing I'd say. But also we're saying to them, is this piece of content something that you think is inappropriate for a teenager? Or is it appropriate for a teenager?

24:32Tara Hopkins:Because, you know, parents, we want to get it right. We want to understand how parents think. can look not every parent agrees but that's fine but we do want to have a bit more of a channel backwards and forwards with parents when they're reporting anything to us or they see a piece of content to let them know that actually that's the kind of content your teenager wouldn't be able to

24:52Kristin:see if they were using Instagram as well and that's a larger that's a larger feedback is that right so it's not sort of like like you can literally shape your child's algorithm which I think I just came up with a really good idea, but it's not that sort of live, like, is this good for your teenager or not?

25:10Tara Hopkins:Well, it's, it's not completely shaping the argument. It's a great, it's a great point because it's not a great idea, but it is getting kind of in, in real time feedback from parents who are in the supervisory tool on Instagram.

25:23Kristin:Have you gotten feedback in general from parents about teen accounts and especially sort of the, the things that I'm again worried about where I think it's so great and much needed. And it's certainly like taking that that base level of like, OK, there's there's these parameters and that's not going to be absolutely grotesque and whatnot.

25:44Tara Hopkins:Again, it's really important. You want to be assured and to feel confident that your teenager when they are using Instagram, they're on our platform, are seeing content that is appropriate for their age. If something is depicting violence or something in that space we don't recommend that kind of content to teens and we're very very careful about that and we use we use ai as well as you know we've we've always had ai to some extent at meta that helps us to to find and remove that kind of content and to do it proactively so we we've always had that i would say the ai is really enhanced in this space now as well so we're able to look at a piece of content and remove it.

26:27Tara Hopkins:And we've got very, very high rates of removal of content that wouldn't be appropriate for anyone to see on our platform. But then we do differentiate between what's OK for an adult to see and what's not OK for a teenager to see. And something like graphic content, we would not want a teenager to see that kind of content. So they might even search for it. And that's OK. They might be naturally inquisitive because there's something going on in the news. and they'll see some content maybe related to that, but not graphic content or content that depicts, you know, violence, extreme violence or gore and things like that.

27:02Tara Hopkins:And we put a sensitivity in. So we say to them, look, this isn't appropriate for your age and let them know why. Because you have to be transparent with them and hopefully they'll understand, like, there's reasons why we haven't shown you this type of content. So we do. And Connan, you talked about, you know, eating disorder type of, if a young person is going through something like that. And this is really important because what we have found from the experts that we work with is that social media does have a role in destigmatizing some of these issues. So if you are an adult or if you're a teenager and you're suffering something like that, you want to be able to find a community and that's okay, that's great.

27:44Tara Hopkins:You want to be able to find potentially resources and that's okay. What you do not want is to see content that is upsetting or, as you say, kind of content being recommended to you that's going to make you feel worse about yourself. Or, you know, so we have very strict rules about the kind of content that a teenager can see. It can't be promotional of any kind of eating disorder or glorification. But even an admission of having an eating disorder or mental health issues, we're actually very careful. even if it's admission to not recommend that kind of content not show that kind of content to teenagers so again we're trying to strike a balance if someone is is talking about their recovery journey we don't want to stigmatize anyone who's sharing their recovery journey but we do take a more precautionary approach that we wouldn't show that kind of content to a teenager and even if the teenager is is following that person and following like they might be a friend we still wouldn't let them see the content if it's not appropriate for their for their age if it's not the kind of content you would expect to see in a in a movie your teen is not going to see it on on instagram and and the other thing the kind of flip side of that then is if if someone posts and their post isn't available for someone because we don't think it's appropriate for them we're actually very transparent with that person so they can go into the sessions and they can see why their content is no longer available, no longer recommendable and no longer available to a teen.

29:20Tara Hopkins:So they can also see, ah, OK, I see. I understand that Instagram is being more protective for teens. But also if I want to remove that or change that post, I could do so. So actually, my friend could could see it, but it's not going to be upsetting to them. Does that make sense? I know it's quite a complicated set of balances we're trying to So we're trying to strike.

29:41Kristin:Yeah, we are. And you also mentioned AI, which I kind of want to touch on as well. Is there, I think, I'm so old, but I believe that there is an AI. My God, I'm like, I don't even know what is inside of the app that I make a living on. I think AI is obviously becoming a lot more integrated into all kinds of social platforms. And so what risks did Meta identify? for teens specifically. And I believe I saw a report that actually meta-restricted one-on-one interactions with AI. Is that correct?

30:21Tara Hopkins:Yeah, it is correct. So a few things. The first one on, I mean, AI more broadly, and I think, you know, something that we all have to be conscious of is that our teenagers have grown up as digital natives. We call them digital natives because they just have grown up in this very, very different world. So certainly the world that I grew up in and AI is just such a huge part of the conversation right now and has massive opportunity for teenagers and how they're going to be able to use AI and utilize it into the future is extraordinary and so exciting. But again, as a parent, you're thinking, okay, that all sounds really exciting and also really scary.

31:03Tara Hopkins:and you want to be able to navigate that and kind of hold the hand of your child or your teenager through that particularly as it's very new technology very new to you know a lot of kind of you know normal people out there like what does this mean so so there's a few things at instagram that that we've done first of all we haven't talked about it but in the parental supervision tool on instagram we give parents even more insights into how their teenager is engaging on Instagram. And one of those things that we do is it's messaging insights. So if you're a teenager and you are DMing, that's direct messages, that's what you do on Instagram, you're DMing some friends, your parent actually can see over the last seven days who you've been DMing, who you've been messaging on Instagram.

31:51Tara Hopkins:And that was us trying to strike the right balance between some parents wanting to have to actually see those messages, kind of opening the diary type of you know kind of analogy i'm a child of the 80s and 90s other parents it was no but i i don't want to go that far but i do want to know who my teenager so in in messaging insights in the supervision tool which is really easy to find just in settings go to supervision you can set it up and then you can get all this information about your teenager you can see who they've been messaging that also includes if your teenager has contacted or or had a message with a an ai chatbot it's so that is included in any of the messaging insights we give that said at instagram we we have really restricted the ai chatbot that your teenager can connect with so this has been for several months been very very restrictive so only chatbots who are in the space of kind of education really have we we have what we call a whitelist which is you actually approve go through like a list like in the old the old-fashioned days where we go through a list of the kinds of chat pods that actually we think is appropriate for a teenager to be able to communicate with however even now as you said we made an announcement this week about it which is we're restricting it even further because and the reason we've done that is because this area is moving so fast and we are at Meta building in this space and building AI chat pods and really doing a huge amount of work and research into the space.

33:26Tara Hopkins:And what we made a decision was, let's just take a pause. Let's do the building. And then we'll decide what kind of, whether parents should have parent supervision, what kind of AI chatbots, what kind of AIs your teenager can have any kind of, you know, connection or communication with. So pressed a bit of a pause button. And the reason we've done that is because we're building so fast. We want to take that precautionary approach and also say, let's wait, let's do the building, let's focus on that. That's the most important thing at the moment. And then we'll look at how we make sure that it's a really safe space for teens to be in.

34:03Tara Hopkins:So again, I hope your listeners who are listening think know that we're taking this space really very, very seriously because it is, it's kind of, it's a new and an exciting space, but we really want to get it right. We really, really want to get it right.

34:17Kristin:Yeah, I mean, that's reassuring for me from the AI perspective, because I don't think the answer is to fear everything and never let your child do it. Our children are doing it in school, right? They're learning how to do it. But like you said, this is something that's so brand new. It's evolving every single second. And so the sort of unregulated access, maybe we're not there yet. You know, we got to get some good guardrails in before we just let it be in the chatbot and Instagram. We only have a few more minutes. And so this is going to be maybe my most hard hitting question, which is, you know, there's so much research now that wasn't there before.

34:56Kristin:It's only coming out now, of course. And about short form videos in general and their effect on, let's say, a developing brain and put that aside from just regular brains, perhaps not great for regular brains either. But especially for these teens that we're talking about, kids, teens, short form content videos really impacting the brain in negative ways, affecting sleep, affecting emotional regulation, affecting just healthy brain development. What is Metta seeing behind the scenes talking about now that this brand new sort of research is coming out? Because that's not something that we're parental controlling around.

35:43Kristin:It could be the most appropriate content in the world. It could even be toddler content, but it's only these 30 second video swipe, 30 second video swipe, 30 second video swipe, sort of that dopamine hit. What's the conversation there around the research that's coming out around that? Yeah.

35:59Tara Hopkins:And this touches on time, doesn't it? It's like the amount of time that your teenager might be spending on one particular app or on their phone and then what they're doing with that time. So it might be 20 minutes and it might be a really positive 20 minutes because they're engaging with something that is humorful and they've had a long day at school and they're just having a bit of a laugh. They might be sharing something with a friend because it resonates with them. So it could be a school project, you know, there could be a lot of ways that a teenager is using the platform in a really positive way.

36:34Tara Hopkins:But it might also be 20 minutes where they're not feeling positive about it. So again, this is a really important one, because what we looked at was, and we have wonderful experts that we talk to that are external experts from who are academics, who are pediatricians, who are, you know, clinical psychologists who work in this space. And we talk to them about all of these issues. And we look at all of the research that's out there as well. And one thing on time that was interesting is that there is no, there is, there's lots of research being done, but there is no conclusive piece of research that says this is a fact, right?

37:11Tara Hopkins:So, and actually there's two very new, large longitudinal studies that were released just this week, one in the UK, one in Australia about teen social media use. And the one in the UK, which is obviously closer to my heart, you know, talked about the fact that this was, you know, an evidence based research that looked at, you know, adolescents use of technology and that it doesn't really have a causal factor in whether they're feeling good about them, good or bad about themselves. A lot of it is about everything in moderation. That's a lot of what the research says. However, what I'd say is that we do look at this and we think, OK, where is their evidence and how do we follow that evidence?

37:52Tara Hopkins:So where we do find evidence that's more conclusive is around the need for sleep and how important sleep is to that developing mind. You know, you talked about the developing mind. So there's a lot of research and expert opinion that sleep is incredibly important for teenagers. And so we factor that into teen accounts. And what we did with teen accounts is that we we turn off all notifications between 10 p.m and 7 a.m and the teenager can't change that they can't make it less time without the parent being involved in that conversation but then we took it even further so for a teenager for parents again if they want to they can go into the parental supervision tool on instagram and they can just completely block instagram for certain periods of the day or 24 hours a day they might say you know what I only want you to have Instagram for half an hour on a Saturday morning when I'm around and I'm going to kind of hold hold your hand you know metaphorically as you're moving into this new space of of being a you know digital native and using social media so parents can block it completely but if the parent is you know busy and and has other things they want to do just to know that actually for Instagram your teenager is muted all their new notifications uh from 10 p.m until 7 a.m again based on that research that that sleep is so important but look we will continue to have these conversations with experts and look at the research and and in those two pieces of research that that that were released this week were longitudinal but it's still kind of early days i think that's one of the things that So many people, I think, are concerned about, you know, the smartphone use and all of us using our smartphones for everyday things.

39:42Tara Hopkins:That's all really quite new. It's really only the last kind of 10 years or a little bit more than that. So I do feel like we are all kind of navigating this space together. Again, we're really committed to understanding it and evolving our tools. And I think what you'll hear more of from Instagram and Meta over the next few months and years is that we are the teen account experience is going to be our kind of most protective experience for teens, but we're going to keep on adding to it. So another example of where we added to it, you know, not that long ago, back in 2025 was going live on Instagram.

40:22So we restrict that completely.

40:25Tara Hopkins:So if you're under the age of 18 and you want to go live on Instagram, you have to get your parents to give permission for that. We're going to continually fold any of our new safety features. Once we test them, we're going to fold them into teen accounts and fold them into teen accounts so that, you know, hopefully every single teen who's using teen accounts is getting that most protective, what we hope is an industry leading experience when they're when they're using Instagram.

40:49Kristin:mm-hmm okay well for anyone listening what it sounds like to me is if you are concerned about the rapid video exposure your child's already on social media what we do know is length of time spent does matter if your child is scrolling or an adult is scrolling for eight hours a day not going to be great for brain development and to sort of have those guardrails in place I I didn't know that about teen accounts, that you actually could limit the time, let's say, after school for 30 minutes. And that's a nice way that it's not coming out of your mouth every single time as a fight. So I think that's a great option.

41:30Kristin:But, you know, I think these are all things that we as parents have to, we're navigating this, Instagram is navigating this all in real time. I'm happy to hear that Instagram is really committed. And as more studies come out, you know, Perhaps those things are going to continue to change. And in the meantime, you know, we know that scrolling for eight hours a day, not good. Bring it back to 15, bring it back to 10, bring it back to 20. It's just this new wild, wild west.

41:57Tara Hopkins:Yeah. Have the conversation. I think it's, you know, it's so important, isn't it? That you sit down with your teenager and you ask them, okay, you've been, you know, you're using, well, first of all, how long do you use Instagram for? or how long are you spending on your phone? Some parents might be surprised and their teens say, really, it's like 10 minutes. It's not that long. What the experience we've seen is that teenagers will jump from app to app. And I think that's something that parents do need to be very conscious of is that actually adults probably spend a bit longer on one app. They have a kind of preferred app which they love.

42:34Tara Hopkins:And if you really, you know, invested in teens, and I see this with my daughter, who's my 16 year old, is that she will, first of all, they always give you very brutal feedback, don't they? So that's what we all love about our teenagers. But my daughter will jump from one app to another. So she might spend 10 minutes on her phone. And in that 10 minutes, she will check out a few things on Instagram. She'll look at some stuff on TikTok. And then she might, you know, message a couple of friends. And all within the space. I mean, they're so fast. They're so proficient, aren't they? And that basically, these are digital natives.

43:07Tara Hopkins:And then they put the phone down. or, you know, go on and do something else. So do you have a conversation with your teen about the use? Do they jump around? Do they find one app more helpful than another app when they are spending time? What are they looking at? Are they looking at things that their friends have posted? Are they direct messaging their friends? Because again, that's probably quite a positive experience. That's connection, right? Versus are they just consuming content that doesn't make them feel very good about themselves? I really encourage parents to have that conversation with their teenager, but also to know that if they do want to restrict Instagram and you say take the burden away, we really, really want to take the burden away from the parents.

43:51Tara Hopkins:So blame us, say, you know, Instagram is restricted for you and you can only get it on Saturday mornings or on, you know, twice a week or whatever it is. Blame, blame Instagram. We're fine with that. And go into the parental and supervision settings on Instagram and just, you know, you decide what's right for your family. Every parent knows what's better for their teenager. I mean, that is that is true for you. You know your teen more than anyone else. And you know what you think is the right amount of time that they should be spending and how they should be spending their time when they're using their phone.

44:27And having those really open conversations is so important.

44:32Kristin:It's probably very uncomfortable, especially your child is wanting to explore the world more. Something that came to my mind, too, is modeling. So if my kid is seeing me on Instagram for, you know, three hours a day while while I'm cooking dinner, while I'm brushing my teeth, while I and I think, you know, we're all kind of pulling back in that way and making it a really a more positive experience for everyone and having a conversation. Hey, what were you you know, what were you watching today or were you DMing or who were you talking to or did you see anything funny? Is there anything, you know, here's what I saw today.

45:05Kristin:Here's what I did today up mine. I actually spent way too long on it today and I actually don't feel that great right now. I kind of need to actually maybe have a reset. You know, how are you feeling? Really keeping that dialogue open.

45:17Tara Hopkins:Yeah, absolutely. I always lead with that with my with my teenagers. And I always say, look, I like hand on heart, I probably haven't been great. And I, you know, oftentimes will be, you know, working and I'll say to them, like, here's the iPad or whatever, you know, less so now they've got older. But when you've got younger children and you're working and you're working at home, it's really hard. So but also to be try to be nonjudgmental if your teen does come to you and wants to talk about it, because I think often our immediate reaction is, oh, no, what did you see and who posted it? you know and kind of did you report it and all those kind of very you know protective ways that parents want to protect their teenagers rather saying okay what happened how do you feel and and try to work with them around something if they have had a less than positive experience because you want them to be able to come to you about if they've had a positive experience great but also if they've had a negative experience you want them to be able to come to you and to feel like they can come to you without you judging them too too badly and this also works in real

46:27Kristin:life for the record that's that's a tip for both both digital experiences and real life experiences to yeah keep the channels open Tara thank you so much for this conversation I learned a lot that I didn't know and I appreciate your work in you know really helping to protect teens and and keeping the conversation going and the commitment to to safety here no well look thank you thanks for

46:51Tara Hopkins:having me and I hope I hope your listeners have do feel a little bit more of a sense of reassurance but also that this is this is tough and we are all navigating it at the same time as parents as parents at Meta and as parents out there.

47:33Kristin:Thank you.