Instagram is rolling out new parental supervision tools

Instagram is rolling out new tools that parents can use to help monitor and limit their kids' usage of the photo-sharing app, months after disclosures from a Facebook whistleblower raised concerns about the platform's impact on younger users.

The tools, released Wednesday, offer parents the ability to see how much time their kids spend on Instagram and to set limits on their use as well as visibility into the accounts they follow or are followed by. The options are currently available for parents in the United States, with plans to roll out globally in the coming months.

The new options were previously announced in a blog post from Instagram head Adam Mosseri late last year, along with some features that were rolled out at that time aimed directly at teenage users, such as one encouraging users to take a break from the app after a predetermined amount of time.