Ever found your kid spending too much time on their cellphone? Have you ever tried to check what they are doing online? Did you catch them using Snapchat all day long? If yes is your answer, you need to get a little intrusive about your child’s Snapchat activity.

Most parents think their children are not safe outside but rather safe online. However, this is the biggest misconception since children are not considered safe anymore in the internet world. Popular social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram have made kids addicted to the world of social media, making parenting in the digital age quite a difficult and arduous process.

Some social media or gaming apps may be harmless for your kids but some can pose a significant risk to them. Snapchat is amongst one of them that may seem harmless and innocent enough but can be extremely dangerous for your kids. Many parents turned to Snapchat hack solutions to ensure their kid’s privacy on the app.

What is Snapchat All About?

In its true sense, Snapchat is an instant-messaging app that allows users to send photos, videos, and text messages to a selected group of recipients. This was the first of a kind social media app that allowed users to send “snaps” to one another that are only available for viewing for a limited period of time. Later on, Facebook and Instagram (which was taken over by Facebook later) introduced the same story feature inspired by Snapchat.

Once the recipient takes a look at the “snap” sent to them, it disappears from the app, the device, as well as servers after a certain amount of time is passed. The snaps disappear after 24 hours. As soon as you open the snap and view it, it ceases to exist.

Not many people know that Snapchat was initially developed as a product design class assignment by Reggie Brown and Evan Spiegel in 2011. The team named the project “Picaboo” at that time. In 2012, Snapchat was launched officially. By November of the same year, over one billion snaps had already been sent by users, making the app quickly top the ranks in apps stores and hitting the top 10 most downloaded apps by early 2013.

How is Snapchat Harmful to Your Kids?

Like we mentioned earlier, Snapchat is considered a harmful social media app for your children, especially those who are under the age of 18, because the snaps quickly disappear from the app. This makes it nearly impossible for parents to find out what their child is doing on the app.

Snapchat is not a safe app for your children as they can be easily exposed to online dangers like sexting, cyberbullying, and harassment on it. As per an article published in Newsweek, the Sheriff’s deputies from Sarasota County, Florida, released fifteen mobile apps that are deemed dangerous for children and one of them was Snapchat. They believe this app could make children encounter bullying or online predators. To find out more about this news, you can read it here: https://www.newsweek.com/police-here-are-15-apps-dangerous-children-predators-lurk-school-begins-1453175.

Since snaps are deleted from the app after a set period, most parents complain that they cannot keep a regular check on their child’s use of Snapchat. For the same reason, some teens feel Snapchat is safe for them as the snaps they post on the app quickly disappear after a certain time.

Teens prefer using Snapchat over other social media apps because of the same reason. Since there is no record of their conversation on the app, they feel the app is safer to use as they can exchange photos, videos, and text messages without letting their parents know anything about their Snapchat activity.

Sexting

“Sexting” refers to the act of sending and receiving sexually-explicit photos, videos, and text messages. This has been seen as a major problem on Snapchat where millions of children exchange inappropriate messages with each other.

What makes young children and teens exchange sexually-explicit messages with one another on this app is that the correspondence soon gets deleted after a certain time. This helps them have secret conversations on the app without letting their parents know about them.

Cyberbullying

Snapchat is also a social media app that is invaded by cyberbullies. Because Snapchat leaves behind no trail or evidence of the conversation, many feel comfortable sending hurtful, hateful, offensive, and rude messages to their target on the app.

Any message containing violence cannot be captured since the app deletes the correspondence immediately. This can be quite difficult for parents to intervene at the right time and help their children from getting bullied online. Some even go to the extent of trying the hack Snapchat password method to sneak into their child’s app and ensure they are not getting bullied.

No Moderation

Snapchat app allows users to connect to their friends by adding them to their list. They can add people they know on the app as well as people they have no idea about. As a parent, it can be difficult for you to moderate and monitor your child’s activity on the app so you may not know who they are talking to and what sort of messages they are exchanging with others.

Your child can get in touch with any stranger on the app and start chatting with them without realizing whether or not the stranger can be dangerous for them. Since there is a lack of moderation, it can be difficult for parents to find out whether or not their children are interacting with pedophiles, cyberbullies or any other person they should not be talking to.

Now that you have understood how harmful Snapchat can be for your children, it’s better to keep your children away from it. If you think that is impossible, consider enabling privacy settings on their app.