By Snapchat is the fourth most-used social media platform with approximately 500 million users registered and 300 million active users daily. Snapchat is very popular with children. Statista reported that Snapchat was used by 63% and 74% of US 13- and 14 year-olds, respectively. Snapchat is a popular tool for young people because it allows them to share and communicate with others. Child development experts believe Snapchat poses a danger to children’s safety and health. You may be wondering if Snapchat is safe for children if you are a parent of a teenager or tween. This article will explain Snapchat’s features and show you how to keep your child safe.
You’ll learn how to monitor your child’s Snapchat activity and stop them using Snapchat via Safes parental control suite.
What’s Snapchat?
Snapchat is a combination of a social media platform and a messaging application. Snapchat has some of the same functions as both. Snapchat users can send pictures, videos and text to friends, or publically. They can also chat with their friends and send multimedia messages.
Snapchat is unique among other platforms like Instagram, TikTok and WhatsApp because it allows you to capture instant moments of your life. When you tap Snapchat, the front camera opens to take a photo or video and share it as a story or in chat. Your stories and snaps are deleted after 24 hours, or after they have been viewed. Snapchat is also known for its endless visual and audio effects that you can apply to your videos and pictures.
Snapchat’s innovative and humorous features have attracted millions worldwide. Snapchat’s stories were copied by Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Telegram also copied the functions for ‘disappearing message’.
How Does Snapchat Risk Kid’s Safety?
Snapchat seems to be an innocent app that allows you to communicate and have fun. It is possible to wonder if Snapchat is safe for children. Snapchat features can be misused by some users. Snapchat can sometimes be referred to as a “sexting app ‘! “
We’ll be introducing all features of Snapchat that could pose security risks to children in the next paragraphs.
Disappearing Messages
This means that chats will disappear after a maximum of one day.
Children and adults alike use this function to share content without thinking. They may share photos and videos, or words, in the hope that their content will disappear soon. People sometimes share vulgar, hurtful or disrespectful things.
There is no guarantee that someone won’t take a screenshot of your snaps. Snapchat will inform your child if the recipient takes screenshots of the snaps. Snapchat cannot tell if someone snaps pictures of chats with another phone or camera.
You should be more worry about people using the disappearing messages to sext and sell illegal products. It’s a common practice on Snapchat and parents don’t know if their children are involved.
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Friend Finder
Snapchat makes it easy to find friends. You can add people to your contact list, search for suggested friends based upon mutual friends on Snapchat, share your “snap code” (a unique QR code), or link with other users. Children are more likely to add people they don’t know. If you don’t turn them off, these people can view your child’s location and stories. They can also chat with your child.
One of these could be groomers or sex predators who want to abuse your child. Others could be hackers and phishers trying to steal personal information or damage devices. Your child’s online content could be used to cyberbully your child by strangers or people you know.
Snap Map
Snapchat allows users to see the exact location of their contacts on a map. This can pose safety issues if you have contacts who don’t want to see your exact location. It’s possible for your child to find stalkers by sharing their locations.
Our Story
You can tag your child’s stories if they have attended an event, such as a festival, ceremony, or concert. These stories are selected by Snapchat moderators to be made available to the public. However, this feature raises questions about whether your child’s stories should be shared with the public and if there are consequences.
Snapchat does not allow anyone under the age of 18 to post stories in its Our Story section. Snapchat makes it easy to fake someone’s age.
Discover
These stories are public stories that make it into Our Stories. Here you will also find Publisher Stories (brand advertisements) and Snap Originals, which are short videos produce by corporations exclusively for Snapchat. There are also ‘Friends’ that you can add to your account and channels you can subscribe to.
Snapchat curates content in Discover by using an algorithm that evaluates users’ favorite topics, mutual friends, age, and gender. Snapchat will not display adult content unless your child fakes his age. Snapchat allows you to fake your age, which is easy, as we said.
Visual Effect
Snapchat allows users to take photos and videos of others, and then apply visual effects to them. These effects, known as ‘Lenses’ and ‘Filters, can create unrealistic appearances to someone’s body and face. They can apply makeup to your face, or perform plastic surgery.
These effects are so common that Snapchat contacts don’t recognize children with their normal looks. This can lead to an obsession with looking perfect and “supernatural” in real life.
Snapstreaks
Snapchat displays a “Snapstreak” badge that consists of a flame emoticon and a number beside it on the profile avatars of people you talk with every day. Each time you exchange a snap, the number increases. The badge will be removed if you don’t swap a snap within 24 hours.
This function seems to have no purpose other than to encourage people to use Snapchat regularly. It was successful because children are obsess with keeping their Snapstreaks. Snapstreak is time-consuming for children as they have to open Snapchat every single day to send gibberish to their contacts.
Snapchat: How to Protect Your Children?
Snapchat does not allow children younger than 13 years old to sign up for Snapchat and use it. Snapchat does not require age verification. Children can easily fake their age. Snapchat does not allow minors to use certain functions, including money transactions. Teenagers aged 13-18 can access most Snapchat features without parental permission.
Many parents are still unsure if Snapchat is safe for their children at 13 years old, or for teens. Snapchat has an age limit. Common Sense believes Snapchat is not safe for children under 16 because of safety and health concerns.
If you do decide to allow your child to use Snapchat, ensure that you have checked their privacy settings and that you use Snapchat Family Center for parental controls. We’ll go into detail in the next section.
How to Turn On Snapchat’s Privacy Control?
Snapchat’s privacy controls will allow your child to avoid most safety hazards. The privacy settings for your account are set up to ensure a safe experience. It is a good idea to look at these settings for maximum security.
Tap the profile avatar of your child to access privacy settings. To open the settings, tap on the gear icon (settings). The settings panel will display a list of settings that you can adjust. First, look for ‘Birthday. Verify that it is showing the correct birth date.
Scroll down until the ‘PRIVACY CONTROL’ section. There you will find a variety of privacy settings.
Contact Me
You can choose who you want to contact via ‘Contact Me’ (chat, phone, etc.). Your child. By default, “Friends and Contacts” is checked. You can make it more secure by checking ‘Friend’. This means that only your child’s two way friends can contact you.
My Story
You can decide who may see your child’s stories. By default, “Friends Only” is selected. If you only want certain people to view your child’s stories, click ‘Custom’ then choose the people you wish to.
See Me in Quick Add
You can now decide if Snapchat will show your child’s profile under the friend suggestion section called “Quick Add”. We suggest unchecking ‘Show me in Quick Add’.
My Location
This means that Snapchat cannot see the location of your child. Let it be so.
How to Turn On Snapchat’s Parental Controls. (Snapchat Family Center).
Snapchat created this feature to allow parents to monitor their teens without invading their privacy. This means that parents can view their children’s friends, contacts from the past seven days and the contents of their conversations.
Family Center requires you to invite your child and for your child to accept the invitation. Snapchat assumes that children under 13 do not use their services. Family Center therefore only applies to teens between 13 and 18 years of age.
Monitoring and controlling your child’s Snapchat activity using Safes
Snapchat’s privacy settings provide relative security for your child. Family Center allows you to keep track of who your child is interacting on Snapchat. It doesn’t prevent them from using Snapchat and faking their age in order to use Snapchat. It is impossible to check your child’s phone for Snapchat, or to keep an eye on them for signs of overuse. The Safes parental control suite addresses the problem.
You have complete control over what apps and websites your child visits remotely. Safes Kid, a companion app for children’s smartphones, means that you won’t have to touch the devices of your child to make reports or set limits. Safe’s web panel allows you to access all your data from your phone. Your child cannot revoke your control.
How Does Safes Monitor Your Child’s Snapchat Use?
The features below can help protect your child against the safety and health risks of Snapchat.
Screen Time Report
Safes will send you monthly, weekly and daily reports on your child’s screen usage. This means that you will soon be able to see if your child is using Snapchat too often.
Screen Time Limit
Limit the time your child spends on Snapchat. You can limit Snapchat to a maximum of one hour per day. Snapchat will cease working if your child exceeds the limit.
Screen Time Schedule
Safes allows you to create a weekly Snapchat schedule for your child. It is possible to limit screen time during the week and allow more for weekends.
Screen Time Profile
On special days, you don’t have to modify your screen time schedule. Only create profiles. Let’s say it’s a holiday. You can activate the holiday profile.
