Snapchat Expands Family Center With New Parental Insights on Teen Usage in India

As conversations around screen time and teen digital well-being continue to grow among Indian families, Snapchat has introduced new features within its Family Center aimed at giving parents deeper insights into how their teens use the platform. The updates are designed to support healthier online habits while maintaining privacy and trust between parents and teens.

The new tools allow parents to view the average amount of time their teen spends on Snapchat each day over the past week, along with a breakdown of how that time is distributed across different features such as Chat, Camera, Snap Map, Spotlight, and Stories. This enables families to have more informed conversations about screen time and digital routines using concrete usage data.

Family Center is also adding more context around new friend connections. While parents already have visibility into their teen’s friends list and recently added contacts, they can now see how their teen may know a newly added friend — whether through mutual friends, saved contacts, or shared communities. These trust signals are intended to help parents better understand new connections and initiate conversations when something seems unfamiliar.

In addition, Snapchat has introduced new safety and educational resources for caregivers, including a step-by-step video guide on how to set up and use Family Center features. Parents can also manage key safety settings such as content restrictions, disabling access to the My AI chatbot and the upcoming AI-powered search tool powered by Perplexity, enabling family location sharing, and reporting potentially concerning accounts on their teen’s behalf. The platform continues to restrict parents from viewing private messages, keeping the focus on guidance rather than surveillance.

Watch the explanation video here.

Speaking on Snapchat’s approach to teen safety and parental involvement, Uthara Ganesh, Head of Public Policy, APAC Snap Inc., said, “At Snapchat, supporting young people’s digital well-being is a core part of how we build our platform. With the latest updates to Family Center, parents can see clear, practical information about how their teens spend time on Snapchat. The feature is designed to help families have more informed conversations, while continuing to respect teen privacy. As digital habits evolve in India, we remain focused on building safety tools that are transparent by design, easy to use, and rooted in trust between parents and teens.”