Common Sense Media Review
By Liz Panarelli
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
All-in-one social app for sharing, shopping, and scrolling.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 15+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Download
Videos and Photos
Parent and Kid Reviews
Based on 188 parent reviews
Parents say that the app can have a detrimental impact on children's mental health, exposing them to bullying, discrimination, and unrealistic standards often portrayed in social media. While some parents believe that with proper monitoring and privacy settings, the app can be used responsibly, many caution against its potential to harm youth by fostering negative comparisons and unhealthy influences.
- not suitable for kids
- mental health risks
- monitoring essential
- privacy settings important
- potential for bullying
Summarized with AI
Summarized with AI
Based on 474 kid reviews
Privacy Rating Warning
Privacy Rating
Our expert evaluators create our privacy ratings. The ratings are designed to help you understand how apps use your data for commercial purposes.
Pass
Meets our minimum requirements for privacy and security practices.
Warning
Does not meet our recommendations for privacy and security practices.
Fail
Does not have a privacy policy and should not be used.
Privacy Rating
Our expert evaluators create our privacy ratings. The ratings are designed to help you understand how apps use your data for commercial purposes.
Pass
Meets our minimum requirements for privacy and security practices.
Warning
Does not meet our recommendations for privacy and security practices.
Fail
Does not have a privacy policy and should not be used.
What's It About?
Users can view popular photos and videos shared by other users on INSTAGRAM. Teens who register and log in to the site also can share their own photos and videos, which can be seconds long or as long as 60 minutes. They can also livestream video, which will disappear after the stream ends, or share private photos that will disappear. Instagram offers a number of filters to alter photos; you can modify the lighting, contrast, and color with preset effects, then add a caption, share the photo, and, if desired, also share it on other social networks. Photos and videos are public by default, but you can choose to make your posts private in settings. Other features include a Reels option to create short 15-second videos with visual effects and music clips, and Remix, which other users can utilize to add to them.
Similar to Snapchat, Instagram offers "Stories," where users can post a series of photos or videos strung together; these last only 24 hours. Users can remove followers, turn off comments, and like others' comments in the app. The term "Finsta" applies to accounts that kids use under made-up names, where they share content they want to share only with certain people. Finsta accounts are sometimes also used to post racier content and bully people.
Is It Any Good?
This social network offers cool photo effects powerfully combined with the social seduction of Facebook, the popularity filter of Reddit, the hashtag and follower sharing models of Twitter, the music-based videos of TikTok, and the curse and blessing of commentary on YouTube -- and that's just within the app. Instagram makes your photos and videos look stylish, and then makes it easy to share them instantly, across multiple platforms, allowing you to broadcast how #awesome your life is right now. The competition for cool can get a little tiresome -- the comments are full of users seeking followers -- and as with any huge social app, the experience can be an enormous mixed bag with a dark underbelly. (None of this is improvd by the fact that, in January 2025, parent company Meta announced that it would stop working with third-party fact-checking organizations and ease its rules related to hate speech and abuse on its platforms.)
It's admirable that you can create notifications to remind you of how much time you've spent on the app each day, and in December 2021, Instagram announced it would be introducing new parental controls in the U.S., which it planned to subsequently add globally; it also rolled out teen accounts for all users under 18 beginning in Sept. 2024. Parents can receive updates to let them know the users their child follows -- and is followed by -- and they can get a notification if their child reports another user. Parents can also set usage limits for their child for certain days of the week or even times of day. Parents can also ask their kids to approve them being able to use the supervision tools. Previously, teens had to initiate that process within the Instagram app, which may not have been ideal for some parents because it left them to wait for their child to take action. At least initially checking and possibly changing some of your privacy settings when you register can be a good idea. When you're active in the app, for example, a green status dot is visible next to your name -- which your friends and other acquaintances could view as you being available to chat at times when you're actually not. But that feature can be disabled in the app's Activity Status setting.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about being smart about what and how they share on Instagram and online in general. We have some great tips on safety and being a good digital citizen.
Discuss online advertising and shopping. How do you know that something is an ad? What about when your favorite Insta star says a product is good? Is shopping from within the app OK?
Talk about using features responsibly. Is it OK to livestream? How can you use the polling stickers in a fun way that won't hurt any feelings?
Talk about the music used in Reels and apps like TikTok. What are the family's rules around music? What about dancing in videos?
In January 2025, Instagram's parent company, Meta, announced that it would stop working with third-party fact-checking organizations and ease its rules related to hate speech and abuse on its platforms. How does that affect your opinion of using its apps?
App Details
- Devices : iPhone , iPod Touch , iPad , Android
- Subjects : Arts : photography
- Skills : Creativity : producing new content , Communication : conveying messages effectively , friendship building , multiple forms of expression , Tech Skills : digital creation , social media
- Pricing structure : Free
- Release date : April 21, 2012
- Genre : Photo & Video
- Publisher : Instagram, Inc.
- Version : 2.4.0
- Minimum software requirements : IOS 3.1.2 or later; Android 2.2 and up
- Last updated : August 29, 2025
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