Parents Guide to Blocking Instagram on a Child's iPhone
Prevent a child from using Instagram on an iPhone either permanently or temporarily
If you are trying to prevent your child from accessing Instagram on an iPhone, you might have noticed that this process is not straightforward.
In this guide, we'll walk you through the iPhone-specific instructions for blocking Instagram using approaches that work for parents managing a child's iPhone device. We'll also go through strategies for permanent or temporary Instagram restriction.
Is it worth completely restricting your child from accessing Instagram on an iPhone?
Here are a few of our top reasons why you might block Instagram, restricting your child from accessing it entirely on an iPhone:
Inappropriate Instagram profiles can be difficult to filter out
Instagram profiles are often used to advertise adult content either subtly or blatantly. This can be a particular problem if you are trying to prevent your child from seeking out or accidentally finding adult content.
Instagram might suggest inappropriate content
Instagram might suggest images or videos that you'd rather prevent your child from seeing. Even if parental control preferences are adjusted to hide obvious explicit content, Instagram might still suggest content that can be a "stumbling block" for your child.
Connecting strangers
The Instagram feed includes posts and reels from strangers, not just friends and connections. It's possible for strangers on Instagram to private message your child.
Alternatives to completely blocking Instagram for your child on an iPhone
Depending on your reasons for wanting to block Instagram for your child, you might find that there are alternative approaches to considerso that your child can still use Instagram on an iPhone:
Increase transparency around Instagram use
Many of the issues surrounding Instagram can be addressed by increasing transparency around a person's use of it by using a screen monitoring app. With this approach, a person can have some additional freedom to use platforms that might be problematic without transparency.
Customize preferences for problematic Instagram features
It's possible to customize the Instagram account preferences to minimize the impact of some of the most problematic features of the app. For example, you can customize profile visibility, and content & communication preferences.
Schedule Instagram use
Another approach is to schedule when Instagram is blocked so that your child can still use it sometimes on an iPhone. You can limit access to the app to specific times of the day where you are able to supervise their use of Instagram. For example, you might choose to only allow Instagram in the morning before school, but block it at night.
Recommended approach for restricting a Child from using Instagram on an iPhone
Here's a summary of the most effective way to block Instagram on an iPhone so you can control when your child has access to it. We'll go into each step in detail in the sections below.
Prepare your child's iPhone for maximum control
To ensure that you can completely control access to Instagram on your child's iPhone, make sure that the device is set up with an Apple ID with an age that matches your child's age. We also recommend configuring Apple Family so you can remotely control access to Instagram. Learn more here: Parent's guide to setting up an iPhone or iPad for a child
Use Apple Family to block Instagram
You'll then use Apple Family to prevent Instagram from being downloaded from the App Store and also block instagram.com so that Instagram can't be opened in Safari. Optionally, you can set up app time limits if you want to limit how long your child can use Instagram without blocking it permanently.
Enable a DNS Content Policy
We recommend setting up a DNS Content Policy on the iPhone, which gives you more control over Instagram and other content. For example, you can use a default-deny approach to block all social media apps other than the ones you know to be safe. You can also schedule access to Instagram so that it's only available during certain times of the day.
Using Instagram's time management feature
Instagram provides a built-in parental control feature called Family Center so that you can set up Supervised Teen accounts. This gives you a bit more control over your teen's usage of the app. You can learn more about this in Instagram parents guide.
Set up Family Center
On your own Instagram, go to your account settings and find the Family Center section > Supervision for Teen accounts. Invite your Teen to join the Family Center.
Set up Daily Limits
Using Family Center, manage your Teen and set up time management. Specify a daily limit and choose to either remind your teen when they approach the limit or enforce a hard limit by automatically blocking instagram.
Set up Sleep Mode
In the same time management section, customize sleep mode so that your teen doesn't receive notifications from the app during the specified days/times.
Instagram's teen supervision features can help in reducing your teen's usage of Instagram by providing a cross-devie way to block Instagram automatically based on time limits. However, keep in mind that Family Center is voluntary and not enforceable. If your teen is determined to use the app, they can bypass Family Center.
How to block Instagram with Apple Family
If you are using Apple Family (managed Screen Time) to manage your child's iPhone, there are a few ways to block Instagram.
First, you need to prevent your child from accessing the app in Safari and any other web browsers installed on an iPhone.
Go to Web Content Restrictions
Open Screen Time on your iPhone and navigate to Content & Privacy Restrictions > Content Restrictions > Web Content.
Block the Instagram domain
If not already selected, check "limit adult websites" then add instagram.com to the 'never allow' list
Next, you need to prevent your child from downloading Instagram from the App Store.
The App Store age rating designated for Instagram is 12. One way to block Instagram is to set the maximum age rating to 12 in the App Store. Here's how to do that:
Go to App Content Restrictions
Open Screen Time on your iPhone and navigate to Content & Privacy Restrictions > Content Restrictions > Apps.
Set the App Store age rating to 12
Instead of 'allow all', you can set the age rating to 12. Your child will see a message like this once this restriction is enabled:
A universal approach that can be used to restrict access to Instagram on a child's iPhone is to use a DNS Content Policy
This approach disables the internet access for Instagram so that it can't function. The app can still be downloaded, but it will not work.
Here's how it works:
Add a new block rule
In the Tech Lockdown dashboard, go to the Content Policy section and add a new block rule with Instagram selected
Customize the schedule
Select a schedule if you want to only block Instagram on specific recurring days and times. Otherwise, leave the schedule blank to block Instagram 24/7.
Specify who the rule applies to
Select an audience if you want to only block Instagram from specific people. Otherwise, leave the audience blank to block Instagram from everyone.
Connect Devices
Go to the Devices section of the Tech Lockdown dashboard and follow the setup instructions to connect devices to the Content Policy
Optional: Lock your Tech Lockdown Profile
If you are self-restricting access to Instagram, you can lock your Tech Lockdown profile so that you have to wait a certain amount of time before you can unblock Instagram.