With many teens spending almost all of their time online, parents are concerned that social media is exposing them to harmful content. Faced with growing pressure to stop online harm, Instagram has introduced a major new update to protect young people and give parents more control. Under 18s now signing up for Instagram in the US, UK, Canada and Australia will be automatically enrolled into a restricted teen account. Existing accounts will be transferred by mid-November. The European Union will get teen accounts later this year, and the rest of the world in January. Other Meta services like Facebook will get teen accounts next year. What limits will teen accounts have? Instagram already prohibits anyone under 13 from signing up. Now, teen accounts will automatically be set to private, so they'll have to accept or reject new follower requests. Other users won't be able to see their posts or tag the account. Teens will also only receive direct messages from people they're following or who follow them. Teens won't be shown content involving sensitive topics and an anti-bullying feature will screen out offensive words in comments and message requests. To reduce their screen time, teens will get a notification to stop using the app after it's been open for over an hour — which they can ignore. Sleep mode between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. will mute notifications and send auto-replies to direct messages. However, they can still use Instagram and answer messages if they want to. Are there workarounds? These limits will be turned on automatically for all teens, but 16 and 17-year-olds can turn them off. Kids under 16 will need permission to do so and parents can make changes and approve or deny any requests. However, if parents want to use teen controls, they'll need an Instagram account. New controls for parents