The Instagram supervision tools will be accessible in the United States starting Wednesday, with a global rollout following in the coming months.

Meta Platforms Inc, which owns Facebook, said on Wednesday that it will allow parents to measure how much time their children spend on Instagram and that parental supervision capabilities will be coming shortly to Quest virtual reality headsets.

The new parental controls are part of Meta's vow to protect youngsters who use its social media applications after a whistleblower disclosed internal papers showing the firm knew Instagram was causing body image issues for some adolescent females. As a consequence of the outcry caused by the stolen records, Instagram's CEO, Adam Mosseri, testified before Congress in December, answering questions regarding children's online safety.

The Instagram supervision tools will be accessible in the United States starting Wednesday, with a global rollout following in the coming months, according to Meta. Parents will be able to see whose accounts their children follow, as well as establish time limits for how much time they spend on the app. Meta is also launching a new "Family Center" portal that will connect all of its products, including Instagram, to provide parental supervision tools and educational content.

It will contain video instructions on how to use the new tools as well as advice for parents on how to talk to their children about the internet. In May, Meta will release a dashboard for its Quest headsets that incorporates parental controls and will automatically prevent minors from downloading age-inappropriate apps.

In a blog post, Meta stated that parental supervision on Instagram and Quest will require teen agreement. The firm also stated that it intends to allow parents to manage their children's activities across all of Meta's services from a single location in the future.