Teenagers are growing up with their worlds molded by a growing number of mobile apps that have been specially made to appeal to them, and if parents want to be able to keep up, they’re going to have to be diligent about staying on top of fast moving trends.
The app market rises and falls with the introduction of thousands of new social apps on a daily basis, but within the sea of newly developed platforms, certain apps manage to catch fire and take the teen world by a storm of different winds. While these apps can be objectively convenient and engaging in more ways than one, the potential that they can hold to lead teens astray cannot be underestimated and must be accounted for. The following apps for teens are all some of the most popular and important for parents of teens to keep in mind.
Whisper
What was once an app that was largely confined to spreading small-time schoolyard gossip quickly ballooned into one of the most explosively active apps for sharing anonymous opinions in the world. The app utilizes geolocation technology to allow all people within a certain proximity of one another to share their anonymous viewpoints for everyone with the app in a given radius to see and respond to accordingly.
While the concept of the app is relatively innocent on paper, it certainly didn’t take long for people to take advantage of the app’s anonymity to use it a vehicle for spreading particularly vicious insults about both knowing and unknowing targets like with no threat of accountability. As teens in their formative years can be riddle with insecurities that make them particularly sensitive to opinions about them posted online, it’s essential for parents to be aware of what kind of impact this kind of app could potentially have on their child if they become a topic of conversation or target for mockery by anonymous bullies.
Yellow
Yellow is an app that was specifically designed for younger users, generally between the ages of 18 and 25, to have a new platform used for making friends within a specifically designated vicinity. While not explicitly billed as a dating application, there are naturally many opportunities for children to have unsupervised exchanges with one another in the form of both videos and pictures. The app, while targeted primarily at children, does not restrict much older individuals from using it as well.
Snapchat
Snapchat’s explosive rise to prominence was based on the fact that it allows all who use it to have a convenient “send and burn” application pictures and videos that they’d prefer deleted after being sent. Once mostly kept between personal contacts, the platform has developed into a full-on major social media platform that permit follower base development for businesses and individuals alike.
Parents should be aware of the opportunity that the app affords children and strangers with unknown intentions to transmit media that can be extremely difficult to recover once exchanged. The app does not directly encourage lewd behavior, but when put in the hands of impressionable teens with low impulse control and an urge for approval, the implications are very easy to imagine.
Since its early years with a humble five-figure user base, Instagram has explosively grown into what might arguably be the most prominent social media apps for teens and all other age groups worldwide. The platform’s basic photo-sharing purpose is simple enough on its own, though the effect that it has on teens’ self esteem should be something that parents seriously take into account. The platform’s system of leaving “likes” for photos that you enjoy can encourage more validation-hungry teens to develop an unhealthy fixation on competing with others to get as much of a positive reception to their profiles as possible; when paired with the live video feature and private messaging functionality, parents have more than a valid reason to make sure that they’re aware of what the app’s potential impact could be.
Tinder
Tinder gained both popularity and infamy as an app that can be used for anything from conversations to casual flings with strangers. Though users of the app must technically approve of who they communicate with before a conversation can begin, some teens might need guidance in terms of their discretion.