In a new step to support parents in monitoring their teenagers’ experience on the platform, Snap Inc. announced today an important update to the “Family Center” tool, which provides deeper insights into how teenagers use the app without interfering in the content of private conversations.
The Family Center was originally launched in 2022 to provide strict default settings and practical support for parents, and it has now become easier to use with new additions focused on transparency and family dialogue.
Some of the new features include:
- Insights on usage time: Parents can now see the average time their teenager spends on Snapchat daily over the past week, with a detailed breakdown of that time across different features, such as chatting with friends, taking photos and videos, using the camera, exploring Snap Map, or viewing content on Spotlight and Stories. This data helps facilitate discussions about healthy digital habits and screen time management.
- Additional details on new connections: In addition to displaying the current and new friends list over the past week, the update now shows “trust signals” that indicate how the teenager may know the new friend, such as having mutual friends, saving the number in contacts, or belonging to shared communities. This helps parents assess new connections with greater confidence and open constructive dialogue if necessary.
- Enhanced educational resources and safety: The company added a new instructional video explaining how to use the center simply, and integrated “The Keys: A Guide to Digital Safety” program directly within the center, which is an interactive course aimed at educating teenagers and families about internet risks and protective measures.
The Family Center maintains the privacy of private conversations, allowing parents to adjust important settings such as content restrictions, disable the My AI bot (and soon the Perplexity search engine), share the family location, and view the friends list and recent connections, in addition to reporting suspicious accounts.
This update comes as part of Snapchat’s ongoing efforts to enhance digital safety, especially after settling legal issues related to the impact of social media on teenagers’ mental health.
