In October 2021, Evan Spiegel, who is Snap’s CEO, teased that Snapchat is planning to introduce parental controls to the platform, which would provide parents with a better understanding of how their children use the app. Now, new screenshots taken by the product intelligence firm Watchful and shared with TechCrunch indicate that Snapchat may indeed be developing such a feature.
From the pictures, we understand that Snapchat’s parental controls will be called “Family Center” and will enable parents to do several things. First, they will be able to find out who their teen’s friends are by opening their child’s friend list. This is unique because you can’t actually view other people’s contacts on Snapchat.
Second, it will allow parents to monitor who their teenager has chatted with in the last seven days. However, they will not be able to open and read the chats.
But in order for all these things mentioned above to happen, teens must first give their consent. Yes, for parents to see what their children are doing on the platform, they will first need to invite them to their “Family Center.” The receiver of the invitation can either accept it or decline it.
Bear in mind that “Family Center” is currently under development, and the final feature may differ from what’s described here. But even if there are some changes indeed, it’s most likely the feature will look more or less the same. Currently, on Snapchat, minors’ accounts are private and do not appear in search results or as friend suggestions unless they share friends. Also, youngsters must accept each other as friends before they can start chatting.
According to Snap’s NewFronts presentation to advertisers, the Snapchat app now reaches more than 75% of 13 to 34-year-olds in over 20 countries, and 80 percent of Gen Z (10–25 years) in the United States had watched at least one of Snap’s Original series. Safe to say, parental controls within the app have been long overdue.