Snapchat Monitoring – What Every Parent Must Know
Are you a parent with young teens using Snapchat? Do you wonder what it is and whether your kids should be using it? If the answer to these questions is yes, then you aren’t alone. Many parents want to keep up with their kids and know what sort of digital lives they are living. If you arm yourselves with the right tools then, Snapchat monitoring is more than possible.
What Is Snapchat?
It is one of the most popular apps with millions of users across the world. Snapchat allows its users to exchange photos and short videos a.k.a Snaps and Stories. Once viewed, these are meant to disappear within 24 hours. It is essentially loved for its cool collection of filters, lenses, and other effects.
Is It Safe for My Kids?
Its guidelines state that a user must be over the age of 13 at the time of signup. Users are required to enter a date of birth, however, there is no verification done for that age. This opens the door for users to create fake profiles. One has to be cautious and use its safety controls to stay away from inappropriate content.
How Can Parents Monitor Snapchat?
Snapchat monitoring becomes necessary if your young kids are using this app. The app offers a few safety features but taking additional precautionary measures is always the best choice.
When a Snapchat account is created, it is automatically set to be a private account. This means only your friends can send or view Snaps or Stories. The account can be switched to a public one where anyone can view or send Snaps and Stories.
Moreover, Snapchat has a video chatting feature. This allows users to have a one-on-one conversation and the entire data is erased once the chat ends.
Here are a few tips that can help parents ensure the safety of their kids’ digital lives.
- Educate Your Kids About Digital Safety
When it comes to leading a safer digital life, the first line of defense for any parent is educating their kids. Having an honest and friendly talk about the dangers of social media communities and their consequences reduces many risks for teens who own a personal smartphone. For instance, knowing how to spot sexual predators, online groomers, catfishers, etc. may help kids stay alert and save themselves.
- Use Snapchat’s Privacy Settings
Explore Snapchat monitoring and learn about the safety settings of Snapchat to help your kid use them properly. For instance, users are allowed to decide who can contact them, view their Snaps and Stories, see their locations, or if they wish to appear in the quick add feature for other users. Parents can help kids understand why it is a good idea to keep their accounts private and not share such information with total strangers. This minimizes kids’ interactions with strangers and helps deter possible threats.
- Establish Sharing Limits
Helping kids understand the importance of establishing boundaries prevents them from falling into the traps of predators. It will help them steer clear of people who may ask for private pictures or information. Though the whole premise of Snapchat is based on pictures that disappear after 24 hours, users may still take screenshots of Snaps and save them on their devices.
- Prevent Sexting
Help your kids realize that once you post something online, it stays on the internet forever. Almost all data can be recovered using software applications. Sexting with strangers puts your kids’ lives at stake. If their photos, videos, or screenshots of messages get leaked over the internet, they may face humiliation or worse. Prevent this from happening by building awareness in their minds.
- Monitor Their Snapchat
Snapchat monitoring is not that difficult. Use it yourself to observe what your kids are posting and take part in your kids’ activities. Create a sense of inclusivity for kids to help protect them from being secretive. This makes it easier for you to keep a cautious eye out. You can save account passwords of your kids, check their contact lists, sift through their messages, etc.
- Limit Screen Time
Most social media apps are addictive because of the many fun features they offer. Limiting screen time helps mitigate the risk of addiction to Snapchat. Parents can create screen time limitations for mealtimes, family activities, bedtimes, study hours, etc.
Most people find it difficult to execute Snapchat monitoring or screen time limits on their own. Parental control apps such as FamilyTime can help you in more ways than one.
How Can FamilyTime Help with Snapchat Monitoring?
FamilyTime is revered in the parental community because it offers a wide range of amazing features at a very affordable price.
It allows parents to monitor kids’ activities offline and online. Parents can monitor and manage their kids’ devices by either approving or blocking applications. Moreover, you get to screen calls and text messages, create a watchlist of contacts, limit & schedule screen time, track kids’ locations, create a geofence, and a whole lot more.
FamilyTime lets you manage several social media platforms for your kids such as Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, etc. Even though it does not offer Snapchat monitoring of in-app interactions, you can still block it or pause your kid from using it as and when you deem fit.
