The Ghost Apps – A Parent’s Guide to Detect & Block Them
It is said that teens change right under their parent’s noses and they seldom can detect where the changes are leading their kids to. As soon as the puberty hit them, they suddenly become discreet, withdrawn and seek privacy. And that exactly is the most crucial time of their lives. The choices they make in this phase often affect their whole life. The company they keep, the friends they make and all the crazy adventures they have – all can have lasting impact on their personalities and life ahead.
The Mobile Generation
It is true that teens hold nothing as dearly as their smartphones these days! Day in and day out; all they seem to be doing involves smartphone – calling, texting, chatting, video streaming, snapping photos, sharing videos and the continuous social media addiction! Gone are the days when you could silently sneak into your child’s room and look for signs of trouble. They keep everything saved in their mobile devices and you can’t get into there no matter how hard you try!
Scary Monsters Called the Ghost Apps
But did you ever think that they could be hiding nasty stuff from you in their phones? We know teens have the raging hormones and the way they express their sexuality has changed drastically. They can be watching too much porn, exchanging their nudes with their friends and can be hooking with potentially dangerous or inappropriate people via these dating apps. All these things have two things in common: smartphones and the ghost apps!
Yeah that’s right; ghost apps! These scary monsters hide in your teens’ smartphones or tablets and help them lock away all the porn videos, nudes, and multimedia and keep it hidden from anyone using their phones. So technically speaking, even if you do get an access to their smartphones, there is no way you will ever know if your child is sexting or watching too much porn on the phone because all those videos and pictures will be hidden in these ghost apps.
The Ghost Apps to Look Out For
There are loads of ghost apps on Google Play and iTunes and most of them are free or allow basic features. These apps, if installed, appear to be harmless apps like a calculator and require a password to open and they keep all the secret photos and videos your teens wants hidden from anyone using the phone. We discussed in our previous post that Sexting is considered a criminal offense in a lot of US States and the penalty could include a fine, jail sentence and having to register your child as a sex offender! So definitely parents need to beware of such apps but what exactly to look for?
You can simply enter photo hiding apps in your play store search bar and hit enter to get the results of all such apps. The most downloaded ones are:
These apps and many more help teens lock away their dirty secret away from their parents. That’s why parents need to be ultra-cautious and be on the look-out.
How Parents Can Detect Ghost Apps?
Well, it is pretty simply once you know what tool to use. Most parents rely on parental controls like FamilyTime to detect and block these apps. FamilyTime has the most advanced features to detect such apps, no matter how hidden they are and help parents to block such apps.
Busting the Ghost Apps with FamilyTime
So as you install the FamilyTime on your child’s Android or iPhone and pair it with your FamilyTime – Dashboard, you can easily bust these ghost apps within no time. Here is the step-wise guide:
Sign into your FamilyTime – Dashboard via the online control panel or through the FamilyTime App for Android or iPhone.
- Tap Reports under the child profile you want to check.
- Now tap Installed Apps from the menu.
- Here you will see all the apps installed on your child’s device. Check for the ghost apps.
- Now if you come across any of the ghost apps, you can block it as well so you child won’t be able to access it.
- To blacklist ghost apps, go to the Dashboard again and tap Settings under that child profile.
- Select Blacklist Apps from the menu.
- Now tap on the sign next to those apps and the sign will turn blue indicating that the app has been blocked.
- Now as your child tries to access that app, a prompt will appear on the smartphone indicating that the app has been blocked by you.
This way, you can effectively block those apps that your teens use to hide photos and videos. FamilyTime parental control app is the best to block ghost apps and all such inappropriate apps on their phones so you can keep a close eye on your teens and your teens get to use their mobile devices safely!
