Hey all, Joey here, and you are listening to Under the Influence.

Today we're talking about something that I think about every single day as a parent.

What is happening to our kids' brains when they're on social media?

And if you've listened to this show for more than two minutes, you know that I have constant

concerns about Instagram.

I worry about how it impacts teens' mental health, both boys and girls, how addictive the

design can be, and just how hard it is for parents to actually know

what's going on inside these apps that our kids are using all the time. I also think it is very

easy to demonize meta and these platforms and say, I wish they'd just go away. I wish they didn't exist.

The fact is that's not going to happen. The train has left the station. So I think it's really

important to have regular conversations with the people who are building these platforms,

not just talking about them, but actually with the people inside meta, inside TikTok.

Because if we don't, we are just yelling into the algorithmic void.

So today I'm talking to Tara Hopkins.

She is Instagram's Global Director of Public Policy.

And she's here to walk us through what it says it's doing to protect teens,

support parents, and make Instagram a safer place for young users.

I do not know if all of these safeguards work, but we're going to get into that.

We're going to talk about the new teen account settings, parental supervision tools,

what is working, what is not, and what kinds of feedback meta says they're getting from families.

And look, I really liked Tara. I really

liked this conversation, but I'm coming into it skeptical. I am because I've seen plenty of shiny

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