Meta announced a new “nighttime nudges” feature that will prompt teenagers to close Instagram during late-night hours.
The notification will pop up if a teen spends more than 10 minutes on Instagram in its Reels or Direct Messages features late at night.
Meta wrote in a blog post that it is introducing the tool because “sleep is important, particularly for young people.”
Nighttime notifications are the latest feature to be introduced in Meta’s suite of parental controls. The company first announced in June that it was developing new features to help parents manage their children’s screentimes and activity on its platforms. The company has been gradually introducing more of these tools over the past six months.
Meta announced Jan. 9 that it would restrict what minors see on their Facebook and Instagram feeds. The new settings will reduce the amount of sensitive content that teens and children are exposed to on its apps.
The social media giant has been the subject of consistent scrutiny over its products’ effects on young people. It has been hit with lawsuits from state attorneys general over its lack of protections for young users.
A bipartisan group of 33 attorneys general sued Meta in October, accusing it of targeting children with addictive features. In a lawsuit in December, New Mexico’s attorney general accused it of being a “breeding ground” for child sexual abuse.
Meta previously said that it has “developed more than 30 tools and resources to support teens and their parents” in order to create safer experiences on its platforms.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
