Two days after settling a lawsuit that accused Snapchat of causing social media addiction and mental health problems, Snap announced it is introducing new parental controls. Parents and guardians can now use Snapchat’s “Family Center” tool to see how much time their teen is spending on the platform, along with additional details about the new friends they’re adding.
With these new features, Snap likely wants to appease regulators and parents about concerns about safety and usage time on its platform.
Parents can now see the average time their teen spent on Snapchat each day in the previous week. They can see how that time is broken down in different parts of the app, such as chatting, taking photos, creating with the camera, using a Snap Map, or watching content in Spotlight and Stories.
While Family Center already allowed parents to see a full list of their teen’s Snapchat friends, they can now see how likely their teen knows a new user they’ve added as a friend. For example, parents will be able to see if they have mutual friends, are saved as a contact, or belong to shared communities.
“These trust signals make it easier for parents to understand new connections and have more confidence that their teen is chatting with someone they know in real life,” Snap wrote in a blog post. “If a parent or guardian sees a new friend they’re not familiar with, they have the information they need to start a productive conversation.”
Snap launched Family Center in 2022 — a suite of parental monitoring tools — in response to regulatory pressure over the social media companies’ failure to protect minors on their apps. Snap has since built the tool with additional features, including the ability to see who teens have interacted with recently, set time limits and block access to the app’s My AI chatbot.
The new features come as Snap earlier this week settled a lawsuit filed by a 19-year-old, identified in court documents as KGM, who accused the company and other social media giants of designing algorithms and features that fueled addiction and harmed users’ mental health.
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The lawsuit also names other platforms, including Meta, YouTube and TikTok, but no settlements have been reached with those companies. The rest of the case against Meta, TikTok and YouTube is set to proceed with jury selection next.
Snap is still a defendant in other social media addiction cases. According to documents disclosed in the ongoing cases, Snap employees raised concerns about risks to the mental health of teenagers nine years ago. The company said the examples were “selected” and taken out of context.
