Instagram this week introduced mandatory accounts for teens, improving privacy, enabling parental supervision and limiting notifications during nighttime hours.

New and existing users under 18 will be automatically signed up for what Instagram calls “teen accounts,” the company said.

The move comes 16 months after US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy warned that excessive social media use could pose a “serious risk” to children’s mental health. Instagram has also come under pressure from some federal and state lawmakers who want to regulate social media use among children and teenagers.

Speaking to ABC News, experts were divided on whether Meta’s new restrictions on teen users would effectively mitigate the risks faced by young Instagram users.

Some experts praised the safeguards as a sensible, if insufficient, step to prevent dangers for young people. Others said the lack of robust age verification would allow young users to circumvent the rules, rendering the new settings largely pointless.

When asked for comment by ABC News, Meta said the company is expanding its age-verification efforts for young users.

“We’re requiring teens to verify their age in new ways. For example, if they try to create a new account with an adult birthday, they’ll have to verify their age to use the account,” Meta spokeswoman Dani Lever told ABC News.

“We also want to do more to proactively find teen accounts, even if the account has an adult’s birthday listed. We are developing technology to proactively find these teens and give them the same protections that teen account settings provide,” Lever added.

One expert said the restrictions may have gone too far, potentially limiting teenagers’ free expression and subjecting them to the control of parents with whom they may disagree on fundamental aspects of their identities.

“We need to be aware of the content that platforms are showing children and how that can influence their offline attitudes and behavior,” Jon-Patrick Allem, a professor of public health at Rutgers University, told ABC News. Allem added that he was reserving judgment until the changes were further studied.

The new teen accounts were announced on Tuesday by Instagram boss Adam Mosseri in a live interview on “Good Morning America.”

“It’s an automatic set of protections for teens that try to proactively address the biggest concerns we’ve heard from parents about teens online,” Mosseri told GMA. “Things like who can contact them, what content they’re seeing, how much time they’re spending on their device… all without parents having to do anything.”

New teen users will be automatically enrolled in teen accounts, while existing teen users’ accounts will be transitioned to the new model within 60 days, Mosseri said on “GMA.”

The new accounts will give users under 18 a private account by default, the company said, while users under 16 will need parental permission to switch to a public account. When setting the private account, teens will have to explicitly accept new followers, and only those followers will be able to see and interact with their content.

The new accounts will also allow teens to choose age-appropriate topics, such as sports or art, that they want to see more of on Instagram. And parents will also be able to see what topics their teens are choosing, Instagram said.

Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at New York University and author of “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness,” offered only lukewarm praise for the restrictions in a post on X on Tuesday.

“I’m cautiously optimistic about Meta’s new teen accounts,” Haidt said. “Most social media issues will continue to plague teens on Instagram. But this is a good start and I hope it’s just the first of many steps from Meta.”

Paul Barrett, a professor at New York University Law School and deputy director of the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, acknowledged that some of Instagram’s changes would mitigate the harm teens suffer on the platform, but he added that the move would likely have little impact because there are no better age verification measures in place to ensure teens sign up for teen accounts.

“This is a step in the right direction,” Barrett told ABC News. But he added: “None of this really makes sense unless the company does something about age and identity verification. All other requirements become ineffective if the kids just pretend to be adults.”

At least one expert said the changes could cause harm by placing too many restrictions on teenage Instagram users. For example, a child’s parents may have differing views on basic identity issues, such as whether one should believe in God, Eric Goldman, a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law who studies content moderation, told ABC News. Increased parental oversight on the new accounts could allow such parents to limit their child’s personal development, he added.

“Parents may have behavioral norms for their children,” Goldman said. “This can rob them of opportunities to express themselves and discover themselves.”

In general, some children would likely benefit from the changes while others would suffer, he added.

“Groups of children have different needs,” Goldman said. “If there is a one-size-fits-all solution, some children will likely benefit and others will likely be harmed,” but he added that Instagram has the right to make any changes it sees fit.

In response to these criticisms, Meta said the company had worked with relevant stakeholders to strike a balance between user experience and parental involvement.

“We consulted with parents, teens and experts throughout the process of setting up Teen Accounts. With these changes, parents will decide whether teens under 16 can change the built-in settings,” said Meta’s Lever. “This will allow teens to use social media to stay connected with friends, explore and discover, while parents have the peace of mind that their teens have the right protections in place.”

“If Instagram takes this on because they think it’s best for users, I support their freedom to set the policies and approaches that are right for them,” Goldman said.

Katie Kindelan of ABC News contributed to this report.