Is Snapchat Dangerous?

 

One of the sessions I took at the 2:1 Conference last weekend was about technology in our homeschools. I learned about a new app, which really isn’t new but I had never heard of it. It’s called Snapchat and apparently it is extremely popular among teens today.  I came home and asked my 13-year-old son about it. He said yes he knew about it and could he get it? All of his friends had it. I said absolutely not!

A couple of years ago when many of my friends started using Instagram, I downloaded it on to my iPad and was going to look into it. But before I even had a chance to, I realized that through the “cloud” it had gotten onto my son’s iPod and he had set up an account for himself and was already using it!  He was sending pictures to complete strangers and receiving pictures from them. Thankfully nothing bad was sent or received, but because young teens (and some older teens) don’t have much discernment about these kinds of things I knew that we needed to stop that immediately at his young age.   We had an important and fruitful conversation.  I deleted Instagram and decided not to use it at all even for myself.

Now kids have completely bought into the Snapchat idea. They send pictures and videos to each other which are supposed to disappear after certain amount of time. This, of course, increases the likelihood that they will be sending something that that isn’t as carefully thought out because they think it will be deleted soon anyway – compromising pictures and videos of themselves.  You will see below that we cannot trust Snapchat as a company. And we must protect our children from the dangers of these practices.

Why was Snapchat created in the first place?  According to businessinsider.com:

“The app they built allowed people to send self-deleting photos, fixing the problem of having embarrassing pictures — sexts, mostly — come back to haunt you.”

From neontommy.com:

“What Snapchat really does is they give the user an illusion of security, having them think their information and pictures are private while they are actually not. The very reason people use Snapchat is to send a picture or video to a friend with the security of the file never being seen by the light of day again. This is, however, an impossible task to do when one is introduced to the fact Snapchat holds every single picture and video on their servers. There is no legitimacy behind Snapchat, nor is there any truth behind the concept.”

“Teens are at risk because the pictures and videos they share actually have a very high chance of being exploited. ”

 

And, no we can’t trust Snapchat to “do the right thing”, because in 2013 they compromised the user names and phone numbers of 4.6 million of their own users!

Please keep open lines of communication with your children about apps and technology. More important than just saying they can’t use a particular app or play a particular video game, is to help them grow in their character. They will be leaving our homes in a few years. They will need to be making these decisions on their own. And we need to help them make the right decisions and understand the dangers of technology and that we live in a fallen, immoral world.  Help them know that nothing in the Internet world is private, nothing in the Internet world is deleted, and that their decisions now can very possibly come back to haunt them in the future.

If you have experience with Snapchat, please leave a comment below and let me know about it. I am always looking to learn more.