To not let my daughter have TikTok

[digimumworld]

Firstly I want to know how many of you have let your children have TikTok or Snapchat.

My DD is in year 7 and has been begging me for TikTok and Snapchat for almost a year. She is now the only one in her friendship group without it and it’s making her sad (she says).

To convince me to let her have it she says she will let me set it up and I can apparently monitor her account if she goes for the under 13s options.

She could have easily set up a secret account so I appreciate that she is asking me and respecting my word on it (mainly because I’ve told her mummy can see absolutely everything you do on that phone - so no dodgy stuff!).

AIBU to keep her off these platforms for as long as possible?

I’m thinking of letting her have an account that’s closely monitored but is that possible to manage at all!

7 is way too young. My dd is ten and not on either of those. She’s recently asked for capcut which I think is meant to be for slightly younger but I’m still wary.

We've said a hard no to Snapchat. DD1 (Y11 so 16) has instagram and tiktok. Insta is how she communicates with her friends and I follow both her accounts so know what she's sharing, it's all fine. Tiktok she mainly looks at booktok. Think she's had them since she turned 13ish so Y8 but she didn't post on inst until last year, just followed her friends.

DD2 (Y10 but still 14) has instagram but not tiktok. I follow her on instagram and she doesn't share much.

I think it's sensible to delay them getting access as long as you can. But otherwise if they have a good relationship with you and know they can talk to you if there's a problem, and they have good mental health, a decent selection of RL interests, and nice friends then they'll be protected from the worst excesses of social media and will use it as a tool rather than being consumed by it.

The trouble is when one or more of those aren't there. During the pandemic DD1's friends had a falling out and a lot of horrible things were said via Whatsapp groups. She was quite open with me about what was happening and so we were able to talk about treating everyone with respect and not taking part in or engaging with the horrible behaviour and I spoke to school about some of the worst behaviour I knew about. Some of her friends (on both sides of the fall out) were badly affected by it, mainly those who had poor mental health to begin with. And having it on Whatsapp rather than just during school hours didn't help, some of the girls would be sending horrible messages late into the night (we have a family rule that phones stay in the kitchen overnight and there would be hundreds of messages in the morning. Absolutely insane).

Why can't people read the thread?!

The OP's dc is not 7, she is in YEAR 7. So around 11/12.

Sorry year 7. I was reading others posts. You could see if you could mollify her with capcut rather than TikTok in that case.

Y8 DD and we’re still hard no to both Snapchat and TikTok. They’re the platforms I’m least familiar with and not confident of being able to set up sufficient parental controls on. Will revisit in year 9 but so much drama emanates from Snapchat that I want to avoid it as much as possible.

Not around when my child was that age but we held out against having a smart phone until they were 13 or 14 and then monitored far more carefully than they knew.

Yes they look at things outside the home and we had to complain to the school about their lax standards for internet use.

Keep your child away from the toxic parts of the internet wherever and whenever you can.

I haven't ever been on TikTok as I feel there's something dodgy about it than other SM, not sure why. But most people I work with are on and it's all they talk about, what they look at, and how long they spend watching videos. These are grown adults! I just think it sounds ridiculous and not healthy for you at all. Especially as the topics they discuss are not very pleasant. I'm not a cyber puritan by any means, I'll scroll through haircut videos on Instagram on a night, but I would not want my child to be drawn in through algorithms that throw nasty stuff at them day after day. It's very difficult to know how to get around the problems with SM when there are also many advantages and positives.
Just hold off on TikTok if you can. Easier said than done, I know.

I haven't ever been on TikTok as I feel there's something dodgy about it than other SM, not sure why.

Probably because it is dodgy. Many countries have banned their government officials from having it on their phones because of the spyware crap it puts on there. China can hardly be trusted in that arena.

Aside from that it's full of shite conspiracy theories and grifters and con artists in the guise of 'influencers'.

I don't allow TikTok or Snapchat for 13 year old son and I use the Family Link app to block them on his devices. He is also the only one in his friendship group without them but I think they're toxic so it's a hard no for now.

Indeed @noblegiraffe you're probably right. I was holding back on directly accusing China, but yes, that's what I don't like... Can everyone sucked in by TikTok not see this??!

No way. TikTok is so addictive. Keep them away from it for as long as possible.

DS1 used to say "I see all the videos anyway because my friends send them to me" fine but you're not getting in the grip of that algorithm.

I have seen fully grown adults be unable to resist the urge to pull their phone out and stare into the void of TikTok in the middle of a social gathering. It's scary.

I can't remember the exact quote but it's something like - we thought it would be a long time until technology was stronger than human strengths. What we didn't consider was the point where technology would overtake our weaknesses, and we have already passed that point.

It's calibrated to an ADULT weakness. An 11 year old's brain does not have the defences that an adult's brain does against this.

Adult brains are pretty defenceless too. Look at how many got sucked into that conspiracy theory about kids being sold in items of furniture.

Mine have had tik tok, Snapchat, WhatsApp etc for ages.
They've come to no harm.
I can't imagine telling my 14 and 10 years old that they can't have it.
It's laughable to be banning tik tok etc at 16.

I don’t get the outrage about particular apps they are all quite similar? Surely you either allow SM or you don’t?

We managed to hold off all SM until year 8 but the tears / pleading / being left out made us cave.

Just seems irrational to “ban” one app but not the others. Makes you look abit daft.

Those dances look absolutely ridiculous anyway.

Ask teens what they think is a big cause of the mental health crisis in young people.

I didn't let DS have it at that age. He moaned about it but tough. He's 16 now so he can do what he likes but I stuck to my guns in year 7.

I think you look a bit daft that you don’t understand the differences between them and how some pose more dangers than others

Tik Tok, where all content is property of the company, aka the Chinese government including the right to "view" al other content on your device whether Tik Tok or not. The Chinese government is using "private companies to make huge databases just like the genetic testing services like 23 and me for future use. I don't get why ANYONE uses the service never mind kids. 🤔

A previous poster pointed out that if the child already has access to Instagram and to YouTube, Instagram reels and YouTube shorts are the exact same thing as TikTok with the same cross-posted content on all platforms. If the DD has access to either of those things, they effectively already HAVE TikTok - so you either have to ban it all, or decide how you're going to handle access to that material.

My eldest is year 8 and only has access to YouTube out of all of those, but the content is the same as TikTok and you're never more than a few videos away from objectionable content with only very limited parental control.

Different apps have different levels of security, privacy and parental controls.

There's a lot of overlap in content between tik tok and youtube (shorts) but youtube has better reporting and filtering content. People are less likely to be exposed to dodgy content through youtube and there is a better chance of dodgy content being removed. There are also concerns about data and information harvesting on tik tok and the CCP's ability to exploit that.

Snapchat lulls people into a false sense of security because the posts "disappear", except content can be captured on screenshots. If bullying takes place, the trail fades quickly. People can behave badly via whatsapp too, but it takes more effort to cover up and people are more aware that it's semi-public.

I try to hold back as long as is viable on such issues, but there can come a point where it results in social isolation in RL which is also a negative that has to be balanced. Compromising on allowing some apps with better controls than others can help manage avoiding or delaying apps you don't want them on. Talking to them about boundaries is vital, and why those boundaries are in place. Also talking to them about what to do when things go wrong, and if they see content that upsets them.

Unfortunately I can't time travel my kids back to 1995 and raise them there, and I have to do my best at blundering through a fast-paced world with them.

My dd12 got Snapchat at the start of the year after begging for it. It is how all her friends communicate. None of them use WhatsApp/ Facebook or instagram so don't have access to those private messenger functions.

Oops my bad, sorry op

Omg people, learn to read the post properly.