The social media has gained immense attention and dedication of teenagers of this digital age. They are found to spend more than nine hours a day updating their social media profiles and communicating with their online fellows. The more time they spend on these social platforms, the more likely they are to become a victim of cyberbullying, online child predation, scamming, sexting and cat-fishing. The social apps like Kik, Instagram and Tinder have caused many teenagers to commit suicide or get involved in self-harm activities. This article discusses the most dangerous social media apps and the ways to protect teens from the menaces of these socializing platforms.
Facebook is the widely used social media platform having billions of active users. While the popularity of this platform is not behind the scenes, the potential dangers of this social network cannot be denied. The unsupervised and excessive use of Facebook and Facebook Messenger can expose kids to bullies and predators. The scoundrels misuse the network to gather information about the target such as his/her likings, habits, routines or contact information. This data is used to trap the target and take monetary or sexual gain.
Instagram is the most popular photo-sharing and social media platform which allows users to post photos and videos. The Instagrammers can comment on these photos and videos and give their feedback. This platform is promoting narcissism, body-shaming, and cyberbullying. The persecutors make embarrassing comments and humiliating posts to defame, offend and harass the target. Moreover, teenagers are likely to expose to age-inappropriate and adult-oriented content on Instagram.
Snapchat
The instant messenger that has gained popularity in the shortest time period is Snapchat. The popularity of this social app is credited to its self-deleted messaging feature and photo filters. The users can make their photos appealing by adding different filters and can send messages that get automatically deleted seconds after being viewed.
The social messenger is being used for sexting because the stuff exchanged via this app gets deleted from the sender and receiver’s device within a preset time period. Taking advantage of this feature, the teenage boys and girls exchange sexually explicit photos and videos via Snapchat. However, the objectionable media sent by your teenager can be stored and manipulated by taking a screenshot of these self-deleted messages.
Kik
Kik is one of the most notorious social messengers that experts do not recommend kids to use. The instant messenger offers no parental controls and security measures because of which it has been used by manipulators. Many kids have committed suicide after being a victim of cyberbullying on the instant messenger. Also, the app is being used by sex offenders to trap the target. It requires no personal or authentic information from the user and allows scoundrels to victimize the target keeping the identities hidden.
How to Protect Teens from Dangerous Social Apps
Parents can protect their children from the potential dangers of social media apps by supervising and educating them. You must have a strong relationship with your kids, so you can influence their social media usage. Talk to them about the potential threats of social platforms including online bullying, child molestation and scamming. Help them learn how they can combat scoundrels in the online and offline world. Also, make sure they know what type of information is safe to post online and what not.
Secondly, social media monitoring is crucial. There is a social media monitoring app that enables parents to keep track of the online activities of kids. You may take the support of the OgyMogy social media tracking app to remotely and secretly track activities performed on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Kik and many other commonly used social messengers.
The Mobile tracker app lets you capture every activity of your teen performed on the social apps in the form of a short video or screenshots. Also, it allows access to online chats, posts and media files exchanged by your teens via social media apps and instant messengers. To monitor the social media activities of your teens, you only to get their Android or iOS mobile phones installed with the tracker app. Subscribe to the monitoring app; download and install it on the teen’s smartphone and start keeping track of social media usage of your offspring.
