Instagram Kids App Development Hits Pause Button After Backlash

Instagram for kids: After receiving backlash for the serious amount of danger that social media possesses to the lives of young children, Instagram had decided to develop a separate app for children below the age of 13 years- Instagram Kids. On Monday the social media service announced that the app development has been halted.

Instagram (owned by Facebook) is a social media application used by about 1.3 billion people around the globe. The app is believed to be harmful for children’s mental health as a result of which the company decided to launch “Instagram Kids,” an app devoted to a younger audience.

The plan with Instagram Kids was to focus on the age group of tweens (10 to 12 years of age) with multiple features such as no ads, content availability which is suitable for the age group. Parents will be allowed to monitor the activity as well where they will be able to track their child’s performance with regards to who they follow, time limit, who is allowed to message them, among a few.

The photo sharing platform is meant to be for users aged 13 years and above since kids are getting phones at a younger age and misrepresenting their age when signing up, the idea of Instagram Kids was launched.

On Monday in an official announcement, Instagram stated that the creation of Instagram Kids has been halted.

The blogpost stated, “We believe building “Instagram Kids” is the right thing to do, but we're pausing the work.”

In place of a newer app the company has introduced different ways they will be dealing with the situation where they will “use this time to work with experts” in the field.

Building parental supervision tools:

The app will develop features which will allow parents to oversee their children’s accounts and "give parents the tools to meaningfully shape their teen's experience."

Focusing on safety of teen users:

The announcement voiced the concern surrounding subjects such as bullying, negative body image and so on. The response to this was, “Examples include our industry leading anti-bullying work such as Restrict, Hidden Words, and Limits, and our recent changes to make Instagram accounts private by default for those under 16.”

The post concluded with an announcement of a new feature introduced last week which allowed users to “Take a Break. There is a feature where, “people could put their account on pause and take a moment to consider whether the time they’re spending is meaningful.”

Other apps such as YouTube and TikTok have built separate apps specially for a younger audience, mainly those under the age of 13 years.

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