Behind Door No. 2 are private apps like Snapchat and Telegram, where posts vanish after they are viewed. For parents, this means a child can share things without them ending up on search engines or being seen by unscrupulous people and advertisers. While this sounds safe, someone can easily take a screenshot of a picture or comment your child thought was private, then post it publicly. Then you can forget about college, marriage and grandchildren. (I kid, sort of.)Then there is Door No. 3, with anonymous apps like Secret and YikYak that let people say anything they want, completely anonymously. For example, I could post “so-and-so is an idiot,” and while so-and-so (and everyone else) could see it, there is no way to tie that comment back to me. Sounds fun, right? Not so much.While these anonymous services can be helpful for children who want to express their feelings incognito, they also let cyberbullies thrive without repercussion. As a result, YikYak has become such a cesspool that it’s been banned in a number of schools and there are online petitions to shut the app down. Going on Secret, another anonymous app, in its early days was like sticking your head in a sewage pipe.Needless to say, I would caution parents from letting their children go behind the third door.But what about the first two? I’ll be the first to say that I’m not a parenting expert, but as someone who writes about the pros and cons of technology, I would be comfortable with letting children about 10 and older join public social media sites — with certain restrictions.Children have much to gain from being on social media. They can learn how to communicate in today’s connected world, and to find and share news and information. And sites like Instagram and YouTube allow them to be creative and share things they’ve made.But parents should be vigilant in monitoring what their child posts. In the age of cyberbullying, it also offers a teachable moment. It is imperative that children learn that what they say online can hurt others. Teaching someone digital empathy is a dozen times more difficult than teaching them empathy in real life. And whether we like it or not, this is part of parenting today.
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