5 Apps Threatening Your Children's Safety and Well-Being

1. Snapchat

This is a photo and video-sharing platform that was released in 2011. With fun filters and the opportunity to interact with others with similar interests, Snapchat was a quick success with teens and young adults.

What the safety risks are:

1. Disappearing messages provide both a false sense of freedom as well as a lack of accountability if inappropriate or damaging messages or images are posted
2. High risk of cyber-bullying
3. Exposure to inappropriate materials
4. GPS-powered Snap Map enables peers or strangers to know your child’s exact location

Alternate apps to use:

1. GroupMe and WhatsUp provide messaging and photo sharing, similar to Snapchat. These apps can be used no matter the platform service you use. You can also choose who is in the group text chain, create events and polls, and message individually. On the positive side, there is no delete message option and no ability to mute a member, but just like Snapchat, there are no built-in parental control features.

How to talk with children about why they can’t use it:

This is where clearly defined expectations and requirements for the apps you and your children use come in handy because you can stand this app against the family boundaries you have made and find the positives and negatives of the app in an age-appropriate manner. Apps that lack content accountability and allow others you may or may not know to track you are unsafe. It is the same as locking your car in the store.  Locking your car doesn’t mean it won’t be stolen, but it prevents that event from happening. The same is true for the types of apps you use as a family.

Other things to talk about with your kids are:

1. Nothing disappears on the internet.
2. Their safety is more important than their popularity.
3. Have a clear understanding of what secrets are and are not.

2. Discord

This messaging app features chatrooms, direct messaging, voice chat, and video calls. It is often used in the video gaming community to build a large community of ‘friends’ to discuss topics of interest. Discord is designed for users aged 13 and above and can be used to discover a community of people with similar interests, not limited to video gaming. However, the only ‘supervision’ of what is said or done in the individual chatrooms or servers is based on the admins of the individual channels. Discord offers several privacy and security features that you can enable, such as filtering inappropriate content, reporting a user, and blocking users and direct messages.

What the safety risks are:

1. High exposure rate to inappropriate content and online predators. Bark’s 2022 annual report found Discord in the top five platforms for bullying, hate speech, and suicidal ideation.
2. Discord does have an opt-in location tracking feature that allows you to search for users that are ‘nearby,’ as well as private messaging and video chats, which an admin may not monitor.
3. Discord Nitro is a newer feature that allows people to donate to channels or streamers followed on Discord. Depending on your child’s access to funds, this can be a risk and an opportunity to teach them how and where to spend money.

Alternate apps to use:

1. WhatsApp, Slack, or Telegram are comparable to Discord. They each support instant messaging and hosting communities, but these apps include end-to-end encryption, preventing third parties from accessing data transferred from one device to another.

How to talk with children about why they can’t use it:

1. Have clear definitions of what a friend is and is not.
2. The importance of open communication between child and adult when inappropriate words or images are seen on the app
3. Communicate what porn is at an age-appropriate level and what steps to take when they come across it.

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3. YikYak

This anonymous chatting app allows users within a five-mile radius to post and read publicly posted messages. It was first launched in 2013 and relaunched in 2021. YikYak was initially created for college students with similar features as Nearby and Whisper. The app was designed with randomly generated emojis that serve as icons that identify the user in every conversation they are involved in. The user can randomize this icon as often as they want, which provides a dangerous level of anonymity.  

What the safety risks are:

1. Bullying and rumors are easily spread on school campuses.
2. Lack of accountability because there are no usernames or handles, real names, and no photos.
3. In 2017, the app had an issue with promoting sexual assault and violence.

Alternate apps to use:

1. Again, GroupMe, Slack, and WhatsApp are comparable apps. These apps have fewer creative encryption functions, and the safety features are more robust.

How to talk with children about why they can’t use it:

1. Communicating that stranger danger is just as much a threat online as in person. Children must be informed about what can be shared on an app and what needs to be kept private for their safety.
2. Communicate online etiquette. Helping our kids understand the limitations of any text app. Also, I know what is said can be misinterpreted without the context and body language available in a face-to-face interaction.
3. Importance of some anonymity in usernames and limiting personal information on accounts.

4. Roblox

This open-world video game is very popular with kids ages 5-12. Roblox isn’t a single game but a platform that hosts millions of games that individual users have created and published. While many games are simple and cartoony, there are very few guidelines or restrictions on the types of games or actions within the games created. While kids can create games if they have the tools, most of them are created by adults. Some games have had suggestive content and innuendos that most children don’t pick up on but can cause questions and language that may not be appropriate.

What the safety risks are:

1. In-game chat features and the option of private chat rooms are general risks. Roblox does try to protect children with strong parental controls, chat filters, and monitoring. If the parent is unaware of these features or doesn’t turn them on, they are not automatically enabled.
2. Roblox also has an in-game currency for purchasing upgrades and accessories. Users can purchase more Robux with real money, a Roblox Premium subscription, or by creating games. However, this does have the risk of scams.
3. Simulated violence, profanity, and drugs/alcohol do show up in some games, which is a challenge to weed through as a parent, and children are less likely to have content reservations because, in their minds, it is “just a game.”

Alternate apps to use:

1. TruePlay offers multiple Christian-based games that promote positive values. It requires a subscription but has no ads, chatrooms, or in-app purchases.

How to talk with children about why they can’t use it:

1. Continual discussions of online safety and the importance of how impressionable their minds and hearts are should be a continual conversation no matter what apps they are using.
2. Conversations about mob mentality and the fact that just because everyone is doing something doesn’t make it a good thing for you and your family.
3. Remind your kids that God has a high calling on you as a parent to protect and train what influences come into your home. What we watch and play does affect our hearts and minds, especially as children.

5. Saturn

This app is marketed as an organizational tool for students ages 14+ to manage classes and extracurricular activities. Students can easily load their course schedules and connect with other students in their classes. It also has a messaging feature, but upon creating an account, it asks for access to a Snapchat account, which has its drawbacks, highlighted earlier.

What the safety risks are:

1. In any messaging app, there is a risk of cyberbullying and harassment, as well as users posting inappropriate content despite the app's community guidelines.
2. There is a risk of non-students having access to the locations and schedules of students with very limited parental controls. Saturn does have a verification process for its users, but the verification process has its limitations

Alternate apps to use:

1. MyStudyLife helps students manage classes, homework planners, and daily/weekly schedule trackers. It does not have a messaging component, but it has many tools to help students develop good time management skills.

How to talk with children about why they can’t use it:

1. Just like any social media application, no FOMO (fear of missing out) can develop because of having heightened knowledge about what other people are doing. It’s important to have conversations about what FOMO is as well as how it can dangerously affect our mental health.
2. It's also important to show our kids how to evaluate apps before downloading them. With parental controls on most smart devices, we can be very restrictive on what we allow them to download. However, creating an atmosphere of discernment and making them a part of the decision-making process helps to grow their ability to make decisions not just about what apps they put on their phones but also to teach them to pause before doing what is popular.