My teenage son wants to get Instagram and Snapchat accounts since his friends tend to communicate using those apps. We have not allowed him to make an account on The Facebook in the couple of years he’s had a phone, because of privacy and appropriateness issues. As it happens, since he’s under forty he’s not interested in FB anyway.
He is interested in Instagram and Snapchat, however, and the two of us discussed some of the pros and cons today.
Can anybody give me some insight into the apps? I mean, I’ve read up so I kind of know basics, but I don’t use them. If any of you actually use them and can give me practical insight I’d really appreciate it. Whether you have kids who use them or not.
Purportedly Snapchat is ephemeral, but it seems axiomatic that nothing really disappears on the Internet.
What kind of restrictions seem reasonable for either platform?
Do folks who’ve used either app have reservations they’ve developed over time, especially w/r/t protecting minors?
I’m mainly considering contact and usage issues at this point. I’m getting some advice from friends on slack about ways to curb the apps, but I wanted to cast a wider net since I’ve never used either.
This speaks a bit to some of the problems with Snapchat. Reading it though, IM very very HO , if the child is well-grounded, then “streaks” won’t matter.
I can attest to the streaks thing. It’s potent. If the kid loses access to the phone, it is the end of the world.
My guys were older when those apps came out, so I didn’t have to worry as much. My family went through a FB thing like this, but it wasn’t really the same as what you’re (wisely) doing. Mostly it involved the kids teaching me what was acceptable and what was out of bounds. As I remember it, my family picture posting privileges were hugely limited, and it took me some time to get used to it.
I guess I’m lucky because my kids are older. The closest I came to something like this is when we first got them phones (and phones were just becoming a thing, so we called them smartphones), but the discussion was mostly about limiting screen time, not any particular app.
Thank you for those links, @Navaronegun. I’m sharing them with his mother in advance of us discussing whether or not we are going to let him do this, and what boundaries we will set. This really does help.
Thank you as well, @TimElhajj for the personal perspective and encouragement.
So Instagram is owned by Facebook, and they just lost the founders, so it’s only a matter of time, on the horizon really, before Instagram becomes even more like Facebook when it comes to their privacy stuff. I’m guessing you know this because it’s in the news right now, but just to be sure I thought I would tell you.
Thank you @Nesrie. I did know this, but didn’t really consider the implications as you laid them out. Another thing for us to talk about as we go forward. I wonder if they’ll try to merge the platforms or keep them separate? I have a tendency to think my kid should be on a separate social media network than his parents, if we do allow him to use these apps.
I’m sure you’re right! By that time their phones will be implanted in their heads and they can just communicate that way.
In general, the networks have a lot more to do with what you put into them and who you connect with on them than they do the tools themselves. Snapchat’s ephemeral nature can be bypassed in many cases. Instagram and Facebook featuresets seem to be (very) slowly merging. Tweets are getting longer. etc.
The conversations to have are about the nature of sharing and openness, about being a good judge of character in those you choose to trust and associate with, about personal safety and privacy, about how to use technology to enable and enhance communication and connection, etc. Conversations that, I suspect because I know you are an awesome dude, you’ve already had or are on your way to having well.
If you dig around, you’ll find horror stories of Instagram-centric bullying or Snapchat-centric addiction, but I don’t know that either is such an enormous paradigm changer that they possess wholly unique dangers. Sharing photos you shouldn’t share where other people can see and access them is never great. Privacy is dying a slow death via social strangulation. Companies buy and trade portfolios of your most private data even if you’ve never spent a second on their platforms. The future is cyberpunk, and cyberpunk is weirdly lame and frustratingly invasive in small but stupid ways -.-
Cue my old yarn about losing a full ride scholarship to NYU over a Livejournal post in 2005 :)
You can just screenshot from you phone and then you have a permanent record.
I’m gonna let my inner old man out, and say something here:
Kids are dumb. I was dumb as a kid. I did dumb things.
But, in the 90’s, being dumb was fairly constrained. There was effectively no record of my idiocy, other than maybe some physical photgraphs, as long as I didn’t break the law and get caught.
Now, with things like social media, kids are given the ability to broadcast their idiocy to the entire world, which keeps that stuff forever.
And, again, kids are dumb. Your kids are dumb. ALL kids are dumb. They will do dumb things with this technology which will embarrass them later.
I don’t know how they plan to keep them apart on a technical level, but on a philosophical level, Facebook would sell you and your unborn child to the nearest Russian bot for a few cents to squeeze out a little more profit. If they could predict your unborn’s phone number, they’d take that and sell it too. I mean I use Facebook knowing full well what kind of company it is and how they don’t view privacy as a word to be acknowledged. So… even though Instagram doesn’t have as much info on me as Facebook does, I assume they can link the two and the philosophical minds behind it will be the same, if they are not already.
I guess that’s a long way of me saying, if you have concerns with Facebook and privacy, I don’t know why Instagram would be any different. The founders left, but even before that, as soon as they sold to Facebook their goals of privacy were just… naive.
That’s a really good point, and one I’m writing down for our discussion. It was a matter of time before he asked. He’s got friends whose parents let them jump on FB in elementary school and we were totally against that. Mainly worried about predators. But we talk about him online, and share pictures of him online (his mother much more than I do). I used to write a blog for him for his folks back east, but stopped a few years ago because I was concerned for his privacy, both literally and philosophically.
I know the, “But all my friends are doing it,” argument is not logically solid, for various reasons, but I’m not sure how much longer we can hold back the waters. And I have to give him props for asking and laying out his case, rather than just going behind our backs and making accounts on his own. Which he could easily do.
@ArmandoPenblade: I really appreciate that comprehensive and thoughtful reply. I’m putting that into the discussion folder as well. First I’ll have a talk with his mom and we’ll go over the pros and cons, and then we’ll sit down with him and have a back and forth.
Your second paragraph is particularly instructive, and validates things that others have said to me elsewhere.
