Instagram to Nudge Teens Away from Content They Dwell On

Meta-owned social media platform Instagram has unveiled a bunch of new tools and resources designed to support parents, guardians, and teens across their technologies. One of the new features is the one that will nudge teens away from the content they continuously browse through.

This feature is designed to keep teenagers from dwelling on particular topics, and it is finally being rolled out in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland.

"We designed this new feature because research suggests that nudges can be effective for helping people – especially teens – be more mindful of how they are using social media in the moment," the company said in a blog post.

If a teen spends too much time on Instagram's Explore page looking at posts on a particular topic (for instance, those associated with appearance comparison), Instagram will show them a notification prompting them to look at other posts to discover something new. Once they tap into a post, they'll be able to explore content not related to the topic they were previously looking at.

An external study that Instagram cited says that 58.2% of respondents “agreed or strongly agreed that nudges made their social media experience better by helping them become more mindful of their time on-platform.” Moreover, Instagram's own one-week research shows similar results, with one in five users switching from one topic to another after receiving a nudge.

Instagram is also launching updated Take a Break reminders that will feature creators to improve resonance. This feature should remind users to take a break from Instagram if they have been scrolling through Reels for a while.

Finally, the social media platform is making adjustments to existing parental control options. Instagram will allow parents to send invites to their children to initiate supervision tools. Parents will also have the ability to see what types of posts their kids report as well as control how much time they spend online.