Apps can be useful tools in and out of the classroom. At the same time, they can be very dangerous for adolescents. Parents and educators must be aware of the risks involved and know the steps to take to protect their children and students. Enjoy the following review.
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website that can also be viewed as an app. You can watch online videos or upload your videos to share privately or publicly. It is very popular among children but YouTube stresses children under thirteen should not watch without adult supervision (Bergen, 2019).
Warnings
YouTube is full of inappropriate videos. A video considered inappropriate is determined by the Motion Picture Association of America as unsuitable for children under the age of thirteen. Although YouTube is for thirteen and older, younger children will use their parents’ accounts or sign up and lie about their age. Children may start out watching a kid-friendly video but they have a forty-percent probability of reaching a disturbing video within ten clicks. The comment section under videos may also contain inappropriate information if not monitored (Stokel-Walker, 2019). Offenders leave comments to advertise sites that show images of child abuse (Anonymous, 2019)
Safeguards.
To protect children, parents should watch with YouTube with their children to make sure their videos are kid-friendly. In 2019, YouTube started suspending comments on all videos that involve younger children. This should keep kid-friendly videos from showing inappropriate comments. By creating a log-in, you can choose which specific channels you wish to follow (Anonymous, 2019).
Check it out at: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/youtube-watch-listen-stream/id544007664
YouTube Kids
YouTube Kids is a stand-alone app, created to offer a safer video experience than the YouTube app. It is targeted for an audience aged three to eight. Like YouTube, it allows the user to view online videos. The Google unit’s goal is to move viewers under thirteen away from YouTube to this kid-friendly app. Over the next three years, they will spend one hundred million dollars to fund original children’s programming (Shaw, 2020).
Warnings
Inappropriate videos have been reported to be slipping through the cracks on the YouTube Kids app. Although their videos are typically considered kid-friendly, parents still may not want their children to see all the videos available. It can also be addicting and cause children to sit and watch for hours (Graham, 2018).
Safeguards
This app allows parents to approve and select content for their children to watch. Under profile settings, parents can select from available collections, based on ages, or they may create their own collection. Parents may turn off the search engine to keep their children from finding videos they have not approved. A timer may be set so children can only watch for the amount of time chose by their parents. Individual videos or channels may be blocked. To change settings, a parent must answer a multiplication problem correctly (Frontier Star, 2018).
Check it out at: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/youtube-kids/id936971630
In 2010, Instagram was launched as a photo-sharing platform. It allows users to share pictures with friends. You can choose to follow others and have others follow you. Friend’s pictures are listed as a scrollable feed. Friends have the option to like pictures. You may also add videos. Stories are short videos or pictures uploaded that disappear after twenty-four hours. You also have the option to privately direct message friends.
Warnings
Instagram has been ranked as the worst social media app for mental health. Adolescents correlate the number of likes they receive with their social status. This is tied to self-esteem and confidence. To gain more likes, teenagers will post at times when people are most active on social media and they will edit their pictures to change their appearance. Instagram leads young people to present themselves with a false reality to gain popularity (Das et al., 2018). The app has an age requirements of thirteen but younger children set up an account by lying about their age. Many children do not understand the dangers of sharing personal information online with people they do not know (Scholastic, 2019).
Safeguards
Parents must monitor their children’s accounts if they are under thirteen. Instagram does have privacy-settings that allows the user to control who can see their photos. You can also block people from your account that you do not know or do not want to see your photos.
Check it out at: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/instagram/id389801252
Snapchat
Snapchat is a social media and messaging app that allows users to send messages, photos, and videos. Users are allowed to apply special effects, text, filters, and stickers. Content can be sent individually to friends or in snap stories to their whole audience. You can choose your content to disappear after a set period of time. In 2017, Snapchat added Snap Map. This allows users to see what their friends are doing in different locations. Snap Map can be utilized for research and investigators to learn more about specific regions and improve situational awareness. Snap Map can be accessed via app or web browser.
Warnings
Snapchat receivers can take a screenshot of images sent to them. The send may believe their image will disappear after being viewed but it may be kept forever if a screenshot is taken. There may be other people looking on the same screen when a user opens an image sent to them. Any image sent can be saved and sent to others. When an image is sent to one person it may be viewed by others. With Snap Map, users can be located by their Snapchat friends. The location of adolescents can be compromised (Das et al., 2018).
Safeguards
Parents need to monitor their children’s activities on Snapchat. Adolescence may not realize the danger of sharing their location. Snapchat does offer privacy settings. In the settings, you can select ghost mode. The ghost mode prevents the user’s location from being shared. When in ghost mode, the user’s location does not appear on the map to others. If a user shares an image to Our Story, it will be displayed on the map but it will not display the username. Non-friends can never see the location of content (Ajaeb, 2018).
Check it out at: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/snapchat/id447188370
TikTok
TikTok is an app known for dance videos. It has become popular in the entertainment industry. Music executives and talent agents use the app to scout for actors and actresses. It is an outlet used for educating others about climate change, systematic racism, and Black Lives Matter. It has close to four hundred thousand followers. It enables interactions and conversations between followers not found on other social media platforms (Lorenz, 2020).
Warnings
TikTok’s parent company is ByteDance, a Chinese company. Cybersecurity analysts warn there are risks with Chinese apps. TikTok could be supplying China with large scale data on the United States. Some countries have already banned the use of TikTok for security reasons. The United States is currently researching TikTok over national security concerns (Abi-Habib, 2020).
Safeguards
Parents should remove TikTok from their children’s phones and iPads until further investigation is complete concerning security risks. When using TikTok, your account can be made private. On your profile page, select the three dots in the upper-right corner and select Privacy and Safety. You can select who you interact with and switch your account to private. Parents may also share an account with their child to keep an eye on their content (Ucciferri, 2020).
Check it out at: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/tiktok-trends-start-here/id835599320
References
Abi-Habib, M. (2020, June). India bans Chinese mobile apps like tiktok. The New York Times.
Anonymous (2019, March). YouTube bans comments on kid’s videos. Computer Active.
Ajaeb, E. (2018). Snapchat’s snap map. onlinesearcher.net.
Bergen, M. (2019). YouTube videos aimed at kids are the most popular. Bloomberg.com.
Das, P., Milankaik, R., Muthiah, N., & Shah, J. (2018). New age technology and social media: Adolescent psychosocial implications and the need for protective measures. Wolters Kluwer Health, 31 (1). 148-156.
Frontier Star (2018). YouTube kids on Thursday announced three new features around the content available in the app. Academic Search Ultimate. 2.
Graham, J. (2018, April). Parents now allowed more control over content on youtube kids. USA Today.
Lorenz, T. (2020, August). TikTok ban? Creators and fans are big mad. The New York Times.
Scholastic (2019). Should kids be on Instagram. www.scholastic.com.
Shaw, L. (2020). YouTube will fund kids shows based on these 12 words. Business Source Complete. 1.
Stokel-Walker, C. (2019). Kids are often led astray on youtube. New Scientist, 241 (3221), 1-3.
Ucciferri, F. (2020). Parent’s ultimate guide to tiktok. https://www.commonsensemedia.org/blog/parents-ultimate-guide-to- tiktok#:~:text=To%20make%20your%20TikTok%20account,do%20a%20duet%20with %20you.