Snapchat Education

“Facebook is for old people now Mom!” And so the wheel of social media turns, turns, turns. Chances are if your child is in middle school or junior high, they are entering the arena of social media at full force.

I have a little age span with my children. My oldest who is a senior in high school is well-versed in Snapchat as well as my sophomore. My fourteen year old son could care less because he feels like that is just one more way for girls to annoy him (he broke up with his last little girlfriend because she was constantly texting him). My middle, I must confess, started using the app without my knowledge and I panicked because I really had very little grasp on the app.

I sat down with my almost eighteen year old to learn how to work the app myself. Frankly, even after my coaching lesson, I find it confusing. It requires multi-tasking finger dexterity well beyond my mom-speed.

The basics of Snapchat, in case you are out of the loop, I find a little ironic. The creator, Evan Spiegel intended to create a service that gave more privacy than Facebook or Instagram for photo sharing between friends. Guess what this means? It is harder for you as a parent to monitor what your children are sharing. Sure you can demand they allow you to follow them, but they will still have the ability to send photos to their friends and those will almost certainly not include you Mom and Dad.

The Snapchat app is not intended for users under the age of 13. If you go to download it in the ITunes store, it is rated 12+, so you can actually use your ITunes downloading restrictions to keep your younger child from downloading the app to their device. However, all the child has to do is put in a different year of birth and ta da, if you have no ITunes restrictions–they have just obtained Snapchat. There is actually a SnapKidz app designed by Snapchat for younger kids. This allows them to take pictures, add drawings and captions but they cannot add friends or message the photos or videos anywhere. You can let them have this as an alternative, but chances are not having the ability to send (which is probably why they wanted it in the first place) will not pacify their requests.

Snapchat allows users to send photos or short videos that “self-destruct” after a time period from being viewed, generally ten seconds. You have to hold down on the photo or video to view it. This often gives kids a false sense of security. The “self-destruct” only removes the picture from the Snapchat app, but both Android and iPhone allow users to screen shot a photograph, so there is absolutely no chance of these pictures always being one and done. Snapchat tried to include a feature that alerts the sender if their “snap” was screen shot, but according to my daughter that is a hit or miss notification.

Users are able to create groups of approved followers to view a certain photo/video or they can create a Snapchat story that is visible to all their followers. Users should always set their privacy settings so that ONLY people they know can send them images so it is not exactly wide open to the public. This is found under settings. Change the option from “everyone” to “my friends.” I have found that unlike Instagram, at least with my crew, they really only interact with their friends on Snapchat. They can snap a picture of their food, make a silly face and draw on it before sending, or update their squad on their current activities.

Here is what you absolutely need to know about Snapchat if you are a user or a parent:

Friends ONLY

This absolutely has to be a discussion between pre/teens and parents. Limit your pictures to friends that you trust. I also think it is extremely important to understand that preteen and teenage friendships are like rear view mirrors and not always what they appear to be. A friend today can easily be an enemy tomorrow. The safest thing you can do is limit your posts to your closest friends. You need to trust but verify this often with your kids. Sit down with them and ask them to show you their Snapchat in the least threatening way possible so you can use this to engage in conversation.

Watch What You Send

As with any post you make on the internet, even if you decide to go back and delete it at a later date, there is a chance it is still out there. It can be tempting to think you can send that risky picture to your boyfriend or even use a photo to poke fun at someone you do not like, but those can come back to haunt you down the road. Stay classy!

It’s Your Future

Colleges and employers are spending more time singling out candidates by viewing their online activities. If having your boss, college admissions representative, or grandmother view the photo would make you embarrassed then just DO NOT SEND IT. You may find it hard to snag that summer job at the clothing store doing customer service, if there is a photograph of you out there trying to be funny and flipping someone the proverbial bird. Hard to say you work well with others, if this is the image you either intentionally or unintentionally put out to the world.

Block Users

There is ability in Snapchat to block someone from sending you messages. If someone bullies you or your child, use the privacy settings and stop the ability of them to send you messages. Snapchat actually alerts the sender when their snap has been viewed. If you block a bully and never view their snap hopefully they will lose their steam in trying to attack this way. Ignore their advances. To do this find their name in your list of friends, click and hold the name and it will bring up icons. The settings icon looks like a gear you click that and hit block. That “friend” can no longer send you photos or videos.

As with all social media use, you absolutely have to have ongoing conversations with your growing tweens and teens about internet safety. Constantly discuss the possible consequences of oversharing which can be very real and have very long lasting impact. If you want to stay in the know, there is a great website for parents www.bewebsmart.com that provides a wealth of information for navigating social media apps with your children. Talk now and talk often.

Instagram Safety and Tweens

“Mom can I please have an Instagram? All my friends have one!”

And if your child is anything like my relentlessly spirited middle-schooler then you will hear those pleas more than eleventeen thousand times. While exposure is happening at younger ages each year, around middle school is when the begging often begins to allow them to have an Instagram.

As a parent, I have chosen to allow Instagram for my children. Tweens and teens are so social media savvy and connected these days. I do feel there are things that absolutely have to be discussed and monitored when your child enters this social network. The best thing you can do as a parent is educate yourself on how the app works and then decide how you are going to monitor your child’s activities.

First thing to consider is Instagram actually has an age limit for usage of at least 13 years old. However, with a parent’s permission many kids are on much younger. Ironically, nowhere when you go through the set up process does the app ever ask for your date of birth.

Second step is privacy. You have an option to set the account to Private Account or Public Account. If you click on the settings wheel in the upper right hand corner shown in the picture below you access these settings. Under options there is a tab for private account, if you swipe the circle to the right it will make the account private. What does that mean exactly?

The bio and profile picture of any and every account is always public. There is no way to change that. But, by marking the account to private, your posts are not public and only accepted followers can view the photographs. The above image is our blog Instagram, as you can see the private is turned off. Swipe right to turn this setting on.

Since we are talking about followers, let me discuss. Kids often have these insane number of followers on Instagram. There is absolutely no way my children likely even know 2758 people. It almost seems a competition with them and if they do not have thousands of followers, they feel so uncool. I routinely sit down with my kids and sift through all the followers and delete people that they do not know. I can tell them a hundred times, only people you personally know, but their execution of that order is lacking.

Another privacy issue to discuss is when you go to the profile, there is an option to include your phone number-make sure your child does not give out their phone number to the world.

Location sharing is a dangerous option on Instagram when children are managing it. The “add a photo map” option allows you to add a location to the photograph. It is very important as parents that kids are not giving out their location automatically when uploading a picture. It can narrow down to your exact location. Be sue this setting is off and do regular spot checks to make sure they are not including a location on their posts.

Beyond the security concerns, as a parent you really have to be engaged to ensure that their posts represent themselves. Kids do not understand the gravity of once it is out there, even if you delete it, it might very well be out there for years. Watch their comments and the comments of others. If you see something rude, mean or in any way a form of bullying, you really have to sit down with your child and teach them how to safely and use social media with class. 

From personal experience I will also tell you it can cause unintentional drama. My child is a social butterfly, if she is having a quiet weekend at home and watching what her friends are out doing…she starts to complain…a whole lot. I remind her I am not her personal cruise ship director and that not everyone is living it up every single day-Instagram is a snap shot. Not everyone can be invited to every event every single time. I also see this as a sign she needs a social media break. It’s easy to feel sad if all you see is what seems like everyone else having fun and you’re home cleaning your room.
Navigating parenting in the digital world comes with an entirely different set of rules, the most important things you can do is educate yourself, engage and monitor, and talk often about the rules and your expectations of them.

Secret Cyber Apps Hide Texts and Photos from Parents

I had a post all set to go this morning, when a report on Good Morning America caught my attention that I felt I just had to share with you guys.

Technology is close to my heart. With one child almost 17 and another literally weeks away from being 13, we are smack in the middle of iPads, smartphones, Netflix, DVR, and all things that are on the cusp of being uncontrollable. I don’t want to come across as Big Brother, but let’s be honest: I’m watching. And I’m just this side of paranoid.

Did you know that apps exist that enable users to conceal texts, pictures, and videos from the nosey eyes of their parents? This KILLS me. In a perfect world, software developers wouldn’t be out there trying to make a buck by undermining and circumventing the hard work parents are doing with their kids.

Unfortunately the world we live in is far from perfect.

The apps can look completely innocent, and are protected with passcodes your children set up. One such app is a calculator app, and functions as such, until the user keys in a particular sequence of numbers chosen by the purchaser, plus the percent sign. This unlocks access to a folder of secret photos and texts.

The potential for harm is obvious. “The problem with these apps is they allow kids to hide their cyber-lives from their parents,” Dan Tynan, editor-in-chief of Yahoo Tech Magazine said, “and sometimes the things they are hiding can harm them.”

So what’s a parent to do?

First, have a conversation with your child about phone and tech privilege before you ever entrust it to him/her. Set the ground rules so the question of trust versus “you don’t trust me!” just doesn’t become an issue. When we gave phones to our kids, we did so with the understanding that we could take them at any time, for any random reason or no reason at all, just to read their texts and look at their content. It was for their protection.

Second, turn off your child’s ability to install new apps on their phone or iPad without your approval.

Third, if they mess up, the phone is gone. Period.

Fourth, to specifically address the secret app quandary, go to the App Store on your child’s phone, and then the Search function. Type in a phrase such as “private photos” or “secret photos.” This will yield a plethora of results. Scroll through them. If you see the word “OPEN” beside any of these results, this means the app is already installed on your child’s phone. Remove the app and have a discussion with your child.

I think the thing to keep in mind in all of this is that we are the parent, and as crazy as everything gets sometimes, that’s the bottom line. We have the right and the responsibility to give our kids these great privileges, but also to educate them, and to take the tech away when it is used irresponsibly.