Social Media
Our overview and recommendations of the most popular social media apps. Keep in mind that every person is unique, so make sure to factor in the relational aspects of the Internet Safety Plan when deciding on how/when each of your family member’s should use each app.
TikTok
Viral dances and a viral addiction
Overview
TikTok is the app best known for kids uploading videos of themselves doing the strangest new dance challenges and messing with their parents. It exploded in popularity in 2019 and has continued to be one of the most popular social media apps for youths due to its fun video editing technology, specialized content feed algorithm, and addictive, FOMO-inducing trends. But, as with all social media, there’s more than meets the eye.
Typical privacy issues that permeate all social media apps are prevalent in TikTok as well, of course (and may be even worse4). A video- and comment-only app means that your kids could post things that could be harmful to themselves or others. Those silly dance challenges they post could be used by their peers to embarrass and bully them. Targeted content means that smart adults could tailor content to kids to sell them on products and ideas that may affect your children negatively. It’s important to stay aware of how your kids use TikTok, and implement controls and time limits to keep them safe.
General Recommendation: Okay for ages 16+, with time limits under 1 hour per day
Perfect pictures and perfect lives
Overview
Instagram is all about filters and fake happiness. Every time you open the app, your screen is filled with perfect smiles, photoshopped photos, and people only posting the very best parts of themselves and their lives. It can be great to see the fun things your friends and family do, but it can come at a cost when comparison kicks in, especially for teenage girls. 32% of teenage girls who struggle with the way they look say that Instagram makes them feel worse3. No wonder, when all they see is “models” and “influencers” whose entire job is to spend thousands to look and dress perfect and post the most beautiful pictures possible.
The more time a person spends on the app, the more they will confuse fantasy with reality. They will begin to think that everyone actually looks that perfect naturally, that everyone actually goes on beach vacations every week and lives the perfect life, because that’s all that they are seeing. It’d be pretty depressing to see the real, difficult parts of your life if you believed that everyone else had it smooth and easy.
This can be a slippery slope to explicit content as well. Many Instagram “model” and “influencer” accounts are filled with hundreds of pictures and videos of perfect-looking women wearing very little clothing. Everything short of full nudity is allowed on Instagram (and even nudity can often slip through their content moderation), so don’t be deceived into thinking that you or your children can’t be tempted into lust on social media just because there isn’t full pornographic content on there.
General Recommendation: Okay for ages 16+ using teen accounts until 18.
X/Twitter
An app unfit for children (and adults, too!)
Overview
Formerly (still?) known as Twitter, X has no parental controls and does not block “consensual sexual content”, so pornography and other explicit content runs rampant on the platform. In addition to this, there are millions of “bot” accounts that can send messages with harmful links that can lead to explicit content, viruses, and scams.
It’s algorithm is designed to lock users into their specific niches while also throwing in completely unrelated and random posts that will often expose users to dangerous and unwanted content.
The only thing remotely resembling parental controls are its X Experience settings, but these cannot be locked, so your child could change them at anytime without you knowing.
General Recommendation: We do not recommend X for anyone under 18.
r/notagoodappforkids
Overview
Reddit is the platform for everyone. You can find a subreddit (like a “group” or “community”) for any person, place, thing, or idea that you could imagine. Naturally, this includes explicit content. There are countless subreddits dedicated to pornography and every other type of dangerous content you could think of.
While explicit content can be blocked for the most part, the style and moderation of the platform is still a major cause for concern. Most major social media giants employ vast content-filtering algorithms and hundreds of human moderators whose entire job is to review flagged content and block it from ever being seen if it doesn’t meet their standards.
Reddit differs drastically from other apps in this area. Each subreddit is moderated by “Moderators”, which are basically just normal users who happen to use that subreddit a lot, or know the person who made it. This, combined with the fact that anyone can post anything (as long as the random moderators who happen to be online at the time don’t see or disapprove of it), means that the app is filled with lies and harmful content that can affect users in significant ways. The standards for approving and denying content are entirely made up by the subreddit administrators, so content that may seem “evil” and “repulsive” and “dangerous” to you, may be “a valid opinion”, “a unique take”, or “funny” to those in charge of the app
General Recommendation: We do not recommend Reddit for anyone under 18.
Snapchat
Never disappearing
Overview
Snapchat may be the most widely used platform for sextortion and communication for illicit activity among teens today. It’s main niche is that it has “disappearing” messages; you can send a picture, and the recipient can open it once before it’s “gone forever”.
If you can’t tell by the double quotes, that’s a complete lie sold to desperate teenagers looking to hide their online activity from parents and others. There are so many flaws with this logic that are probably obvious already to you – including the fact that the recipient of any “disappearing” message could take a picture of that message using another phone or camera and have that image or text forever. Nothing, and I mean nothing, that is posted online can be counted on as being temporary.
That being said, teens with still-developing prefrontal cortexes don’t always think rationally and are more likely to send risqué content on a platform like this. If you allow your child onto Snapchat at any point, you need to have upfront and continued conversations about what they see and post, and help encourage them to make wise and thoughtful decision.
Another key benefit that used to be a major boast for Snapchat when it first became popular was its ease in sending quick photos and videos to friends. But standard texting apps have come such a long way in the past 10 years, rendering this point null and void as well.
General Recommendation: Okay for ages 16+ using Family Center until 18.
YouTube
Anything you want to watch
Overview
Reddit is the platform for everyone. You can find a subreddit (like a “group” or “community”) for any person, place, thing, or idea that you could imagine. Naturally, this includes explicit content. There are countless subreddits dedicated to pornography and every other type of dangerous content you could think of.
While explicit content can be blocked for the most part, the style and moderation of the platform is still a major cause for concern. Most major social media giants employ vast content-filtering algorithms and hundreds of human moderators whose entire job is to review flagged content and block it from ever being seen if it doesn’t meet their standards.
Reddit differs drastically from other apps in this area. Each subreddit is moderated by “Moderators”, which are basically just normal users who happen to use that subreddit a lot, or know the person who made it. This, combined with the fact that anyone can post anything (as long as the random moderators who happen to be online at the time don’t see or disapprove of it), means that the app is filled with lies and harmful content that can affect users in significant ways. The standards for approving and denying content are entirely made up by the subreddit administrators, so content that may seem “evil” and “repulsive” and “dangerous” to you, may be “a valid opinion”, “a unique take”, or “funny” to those in charge of the app
General Recommendation: We recommend whitelisted access up to age 13, then teen parental controls and time limits.