Usher Is Grappling With His Teen Sons' Instagram Usage—But He Has a Solution

As a dad of two teenage sons, Usher shares the concerns many parents have when it comes to social media. How do we protect kids from harmful content? And what on earth can we do to rein in their screentime?

On December 11, the singer and his two sons, 18-year-old Cinco and 17-year-old Naviyd, appeared in the first episode of Instagram’s Carversations, a video series that brings celebrity parents and their teens together for in-car conversations about social media.

“I don’t want my kid to see something I didn’t choose to allow them to see,” Usher tells Cinco and Naviyd, his kids from his marriage to ex-wife Tameka Foster. The 47-year-old says Instagram’s Teen Accounts feature has enabled him to feel more control over what his sons see online.

“It just gives us peace of mind that kids won’t necessarily look at things they shouldn’t see and are distracted,” he says of the feature that filters out content that likely wouldn’t align with a PG-13 movie rating.

“I’m really raising kids who are future adults. I want them to know the reality of the world that they live in, but I never wanted you to be exposed to things you shouldn’t before it’s time because I think that sometimes people are irresponsible in the way that they post,” he says.

Usher and his sons also say that Instagram Teen Accounts’ time management features make it easier to manage screen time. “It’s almost like a time limit,” Cinco says of a feature that allows account holders to set a daily limit on how much time spent on the app. “Basically, say it’s like 15 minutes. You want your child to be on the app for 15 minutes. You will set it at 15 minutes, boom. It will lock them out. That’s all they get.”

“Let’s look at it from the vantage point of making certain that you guys can prioritize the things that you need to, like homework,” Usher says, “or being able to focus on other things and not be caught down the wormhole. Before you’ve been looking at your phone for two hours, you know what I’m saying?”

“You should only have so much time to even be active online because I want you to do active things, to go outside, to actively engage in the world that you’re in, to play your sports,” the dad of four adds.