My teenager has been acting really secretive lately and I’m worried they might be talking to someone they shouldn’t be. I checked their regular DMs but I heard Instagram has a separate hidden inbox or something? Just trying to figure out if there’s a way for me as a parent to see those messages on their account.
Yeah so the “hidden inbox” thing on Instagram is actually just message requests — it’s where DMs from people they don’t follow go, kind of a filtered inbox. Not really “secret,” just tucked away. You can check it if you have access to their phone by tapping the message icon → then look for “Message Requests” at the top.
There’s no special secret conversation feature on Instagram like Facebook Messenger used to have, so don’t stress too much about that specifically.
Honestly though, if your kid is being secretive, the bigger wins are Family Link (Android) or Screen Time (iPhone) — those let you see app usage time and set limits without needing to dig through messages, which is usually the more practical move anyway.