Two days after Snapchat settled a lawsuit accusing it of contributing to social media addiction and mental health issues, the company announced it would introduce new parental controls. Parents and guardians can now use Snapchat’s Family Center tool to see how much time their teens are spending on the platform and see details about new friends they’ve added.
With these new features, Snap is likely trying to appease regulators and parents concerned about safety and screen time concerns on the platform.
Parents can now see the average amount of time their teens spent on Snapchat each day over the past week. You can see how this time changes across different parts of the app, including chatting, snapping, creating with the camera, using Snap Maps, and watching content in Spotlight and Stories.
Family Center already allowed parents to see their teen’s complete list of friends on Snapchat, and now they can see how their teen knows about new people they’ve added as friends. For example, parents will be able to see if they have mutual friends, if they’re saved as a contact, and if they’re part of a shared community.
“These trust signals make it easier for parents to understand new connections and give them more confidence that their teen is chatting with someone they know in real life,” Snapp wrote in a blog post. “If parents or guardians meet a new friend they don’t know well, they can get the information they need to start a productive conversation.”
Snap launched Family Center, a suite of parental monitoring tools, in 2022 in response to regulatory pressure over social media companies’ failure to protect minors on their apps. Since then, Snap has built the tool with additional features, including the ability to see who teens have recently interacted with, set time limits, and block access to the app’s My AI chatbot.
The new feature was announced earlier this week as Snap settled a lawsuit brought by a 19-year-old boy, 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.
tech crunch event
san francisco
|
October 13-15, 2026
Other platforms, including Meta, YouTube, and TikTok, are also named in the lawsuit, but no settlements have been reached with those companies. Jury selection for the remaining cases against Meta, TikTok, and YouTube is scheduled to begin next.
Snap remains a defendant in other social media addiction lawsuits. According to documents disclosed in the ongoing lawsuit, Snap employees have expressed concerns about the risks to teens’ mental health dating back nine years. The company said these examples were “selected” and taken out of context.
Source link
