Social media has become the communication tool of choice for many teenagers, and while most use it to stay in touch with friends and share photos, there’s a darker side that is luring teens to partake in risky behaviors and share inappropriately.
Because the apps and websites that teens use are always changing, it’s important to talk openly with your kids about these worrisome trends. Here are 5 dangerous social media trends that parents should be aware of.
Challenges that Encourage Teens to Try Risky Behaviors
From duct taping your friend to a pole to eating laundry detergent, dangerous challenges spread across social media channels and encourage teens to participate. Some of the posted challenges seem too preposterous to be true, but the sheer ridiculousness of them is what inspires teens to give them a go. In many cases, these dangerous stunts are resulting in serious injuries, or even death.
Sharing Inappropriate Photos or Videos
In the digital age, sexting is nothing new, but with new online apps, come new dangers. Snapchat and other social media sites are designed to show a picture to recipients for just a few seconds, allowing teens to send harmlessly explicit photos without ramifications.
What teens don’t realize is that the recipient can easily screenshot that photo and use it in ways that weren’t originally intended. The results range from public humiliation and a tarnished reputation to bullying, and even legal action.
Group Messaging Apps
There was a time when a record of teen texting would show up in their parent’s phone bill each month. New group messaging apps are making texts much harder to track. Apps like Snapchat, Kik messenger, and Line allow teens unlimited texting, in-app purchases, group chats, and the ability to text with complete strangers.
Anonymous Sharing Sites
These apps and sites allow users to write and share posts based on a theme. Whisper, for example, encourages users to post their deepest, darkest secrets anonymously.
While this may seem harmless, these social sharing sites often contain explicit material, including pornographic language and photos. Users don’t have to give out personal information on anonymous sharing sites, but the truth is that many of them do, and sexual predation is common.
Online Communities that Support Self-Harm
Marketed as self-harm support sites, these online communities may do more harm than good. Groups are loosely based on issues that commonly affect teens like suicide, cutting and eating disorders.
Teens can use the site to share their troubles and ask for help. While this can be a good thing for teens in trouble, some sites are completely unmonitored and there have been cases where the “support” is actually encouraging others to partake in risky behavior.
As parents, it’s up to us to be aware of these alarming trends, as well as what our kids are doing online. The more we know about the destructive behaviors that are impacting teens and their families, the better equipped we will be to guide our teens through these issues as they arise, or better yet before they arise.
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