Parenting-Media.Pdf
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Parenting Tips Media Media and Today’s Dangers http://www.hightechdad.com/2014/09/27/parents-guide-to-social-media-apps-used-by-kids/ Facebook Everyone knows what Facebook is, right? Here’s what they say about themselves: “The Facebook Page celebrates how our friends inspire us, support us, and help us discover the world when we connect.” It’s huge and the “whole world” is on it. There are many ways to share content as text, links, photos and videos. With Facebook, privacy has always been and will continue to be an issue. It’s incredibly complicated to figure out what your friends, your kids’ friends, or what strangers can or cannot see and what their friends can see. Facebook has tried to make this better, but it is still complicated. Instagram This service allows you to share, comment on and like photos and short videos. The mobile apps include filters to add a creative lens to the images or videos. Media can also be shared privately. Instagram is relatively harmless but some care should be taken when using the service. Frequently, kids link to their Kik or Ask.fm accounts. Also, graphic and inappropriate photos can be easily found on the service with just a quick search. Parents should talk to their kids about the types of photos (and videos) they post as they could be used for bullying or could provide details about where they live or go to school. Also, for younger kids, I recommend having accounts be private and only allow known connections to view these private accounts. Snapchat Using the mobile app, you can send and receive photos/videos (“moments”) with contacts. As they say “a new way to share moments with friends on iPhone and Android”. Snaps “disappear” after 10 seconds. While texting pictures is easy enough, the allure of SnapChat is that the pictures or videos disappear (and supposedly can’t be copied or saved). The warning here is, however, they CAN be copied or saved. Take a look at my article on SnapHack which allows for saving of photos/videos. Parents should be careful and explain to their kids that the stuff they share on SnapChat is NOT temporary so don’t send anything that they wouldn’t want to pop up somewhere else later. Fun, addictive but potentially quite dangerous, especially for bullying or sharing of inappropriate content. Twitter According to their site: “Twitter helps you create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers.” You can send short, 140 character messages publicly or privately, follow people, create lists, share media and links and engage in written conversations in real-time. Twitter seems to be pretty tame when it comes to kids and social media, and that is probably why they aren’t as active on it compared to some of the others on the list. Many kids just follow celebrities or brands that they like or even participate in giveaways. Twitter is raw though, there aren’t any real filters or controls. You can make your profile private which means that only those people who you have allowed to follow you can see your updates. Vine “Explore the world of beautiful, looping videos” – sounds great, but you do a lot more. You can create and share 6 second videos as well as browse through the 100’s of thousands of Vines out there. This service is owned by Twitter. Vine is relatively harmless but does have graphic language and profanities. It probably shouldn’t be used by kids younger than 13 (which aren’t supposed to use it anyway). A lot of the popular content can also be accessed on YouTube or Instagram as well. Vine can be come a bit of a time suck (writing from personal experience) and there is some quite well done videos there. Ask.fm “Ask and Answer” is what is written on the home page. It is essentially this. You create a profile and people can ask you questions, either anonymously or with a named account. Honestly, I believe this to be a pretty scary site and social service compared to others on this list. It is full of blatant bullying, mean conversations, sexual innuendoes and lots of other things that I wouldn’t want my children to participate in. The problem is, it is quite popular with teens and tweens. Also, the company is based in Latvia (in the European Union) and follows Latvian Law. It’s unclear what cyberbullying policies and policing that law supports. If you want to pick a battle, try to control your kid’s usage & involvement on Ask.fm. Kik According to Kik’s website: “Kik is the first smartphone messenger with a built-in browser. You can talk, browse and share with your friends.” It’s essentially a messenger like many others out there, however, it has a huge user base. Frequently, kids will write “Kik me at xxxx” on their other social profiles which essentially opens an un-filtered, private conversation channel WhatsApp WhatsApp is a messaging service that lets users exchange unlimited text, audio, photo and video messages over the Internet. Users like it because it doesn’t have ads, it costs nothing to use and it works on the same data plan used for email and web browsing. As of 2015, 50 percent more messages are sent using WhatsApp than SMS. Tumblr Users can post on their boards, follow other bloggers, or search posts by keywords. Tumblr lets bloggers post various content, such as text, photos, pictures, music, videos, links and more. Posted content can be original or re-posted from others’ boards. Tinder is a dating app for smartphones. Released in 2012, it’s a mashup of traditional online dating, GPS targeting, and instant messaging. Tinder Tinder is a dating app for smartphones. Released in 2012, it’s a mashup of traditional online dating, GPS targeting, and instant messaging. Users are shown with a photo of potential matches in their area, and then can anonymously rate that person by “swiping” their picture off the screen in a different direction. Interested? Swipe right. Not interested? Swipe left. If two users both “swipe right” to indicate they are interested, Tinder makes an “introduction” and reveals each user’s identity. The couple can then message each other and arrange to meet. Blendr: A flirting app used to meet new people through GPS location services. You can send messages, photos, videos, rate the hotness of other users, etc. There are no authentication requirements, so sexual predators can contact minors, minors can meet up with adults. And again, the sexting. Whisper: Whisper is an anonymous confession app. It allows users to superimpose text over a picture in order to share their thoughts and feelings anonymously. However, you post anonymously, but it displays the area you are posting from. You can also search for users posting within a mile from you. Due to the anonymity, kids are posting pics of other kids with derogatory text superimposed on the image. Also, users do not have to register to use Whisper and can use the app to communicate with other users nearby through GPS. Yik Yak: An app that allows users to post text-only “Yaks” of up to 200 characters. The messages can be viewed by the 500 Yakkers who are closest to the person who wrote the Yak, as determined by GPS tracking. Users are exposed to and are contributing sexually explicit content, derogatory language and personal attacks. Although the posts are anonymous, kids start revealing personal information as they get more comfortable with other users. Poof: This app allows users to make other apps “disappear” on their phone. Kids can hide any app they don’t want you to see by opening the app and selecting other apps.It’s obvious, right? Luckily, you can no longer purchase this app. But, if it was downloaded before it became unavailable, your child may still have it. Keep in mind that these types of apps are created and then terminated quickly, but similar ones are continuously being created. Others to look for: Hidden Apps, App Lock and Hide It Pro. Down: This app, which used to be called Bang With Friends, is connected to Facebook. Users can categorize their Facebook friends in one of two ways: They can indicate whether or not a friend is someone they’d like to hang with or someone they are “down” to hook-up with. Pew Research Center 2015 http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/04/09/teens-social-media-technology-2015/ Facebook is the most popular and frequently used social media platform among teens; half of teens use Instagram, and nearly as many use Snapchat Facebook remains the most used social media site among American teens ages 13 to 17 with 71% of all teens using the site, even as half of teens use Instagram and four-in-ten use Snapchat. 71% of teens use more than one social network site Teens are diversifying their social network site use. A majority of teens — 71% — report using more than one social network site out of the seven platform options they were asked about. Among the 22% of teens who only use one site, 66% use Facebook, 13% use Google+, 13% use Instagram and 3% use Snapchat. Teens receive an average of 30 texts yet Snap Chat and IM are beginning to dominate those numbers. Many teens use snap chat as their form of texting. Nearly three-quarters (72%) of teens play video games online or on their phone — 84% of boys and 59% of girls — play such games.