Snapchat

[swizzlestix]

My 10 year old daughter wants this as says ALL her friends have it. Have any of you had any safety issues with it. I know you can have Ghost Mode to stop your location being visible. Thanks

Bumping!

The pictures don't 'disappear'. Anything she takes a pic of or is sent to her stays on her phone.

She will argue this with you but it is true.

I'm a teacher, I hate snapchat.

Snapchat is awful. Do not let your kids on it. Im not joking. It's a nightmare.

It's not the safest of social media.

While sassh is right that anything your daughter takes will remain on the camera roll that's not the problem with "disappearing" pictures sassh. The problem is the fact that the pictures disappear means it's very very very very easy to cyber bully. No proof you see, the picture lasts 5 seconds, it's gone as soon as you take your finger off it. It's also easy to receive well adult pictures for same reason and it can become a bit of a grooming ground.

Also yes sure you could screen cap these messages, but two things it might not occur to a ten year old to do that, and it tells the sender that their picture has been screen capped, which could spark more bullying, or people trying to get hold of the phone to delete the evidence.

Although I imagine a lot of 10 year olds do have it not something I would risk

Snapchat pictures DO delete by default, but there are ways to save them if the recipient really wanted to (screenshots, other third party apps).

You can change settings so that she can only receive snapchats from friends ie not random strangers and make the settings so that she can only be “added” by people who already have her number. She can of course, always change those settings herself!

My friends and I all use it perfectly innocently and mostly for a laugh, but I’m 36 so I can’t comment on how teenagers use it.

I’ve read horrific stories about it being used for bullying, that would probably be the thing that would make me most uncomfortable about letting a teenager have it....

Sorry in my half asleep state I thought your DD was 14?! Just realised 10 - no way to SC but then I won’t let my DS (almost 10) have a phone, I’ve told him no way until he’s in secondary school.

The problem is the fact that the pictures disappear means it's very very very very easy to cyber bully. No proof you see, the picture lasts 5 seconds, it's gone as soon as you take your finger off it.

No it isn't. The 'delete' function doesn't delete it tells the phone to ignore it.

Remember in the old days when if you wanted to save a word document then you had to put .doc after the name? Now it's automatically done. What snapchat does is change the file extension (.doc or .gif or . whatever) to .nomedia, this means it is invisble but is still there

They will not show up in a search but they are in the cache and even if you have deleted your cache there are still ways to recover it.

The terms and conditions state she should be 13+.

Don't do it!!!

I had similar concerns but my dd 'played' with her aunties Snapchat a lot, the filters etc are great fun, so I eventually relented but the condition was only her aunts, cousins and closest friends on there.

Her aunts are quite young and Snapchat a lot. I thought it'd be mainly them she interacted with.

Her 'friend' sent some really mean chats. One of my rules was she could only have SC on my iPad and only go on it when I was present so thankfully I saw the chats. I spoke to friends mum who accuses DD of exaggerating and insist she was always supervising when her DD was on sc.

Anyway, long story short, we deleted account and let DD have Instagram instead. Seems less open to bullying and nastiness (though I'm learning about live stories in there now and am slightly concerned)

Social media is a minefield for parents of pre-teens.
They are so vulnerable to bullying and abuse, so desperate to have all these things though and majority of kids in year 6 have them.

Thanks so much everyone that's really helpful and it is definitely a big fat NO.
Really pleased I asked as was wavering!

What is snapchat

My 10 yr old dd and almost 12 yr old ds are not allowed any of these apps...they have iPads which are secured/monitored and our WiFi is controlled......most of the social media apps are 13+ anyway. I am a teacher and know what damage and addiction than be caused. I personally know of kids who have committed suicide over online abuse by other kids! Not worth it in my opinion even if being supervised. My kids know that the "everyone has it!" Approach won't work with me. Good luck in your decision.

Can someone pls explain what SNAPCHAT Is?

Thanks for your reply. We’ve held off snap chat despite ‘ALL’ her friends having it!
I went on some online safety safeguarding training this week and they said that when you sign up to snapchat you are granting them permission to use your face and voice for anything they want!! Scary stuff!!

This might be helpful, when considering any apps. It's the NSPCC Net Aware website. Tells you about each app, age limits, reporting buttons etc. It also have views from parents and children about how they view it. Some of the apps such as WhatsApp etc have quite high age limits which always shocks parents and students when we deliver online training at work. It's a good place to get clued up! Hope it helps.

www.net-aware.org.uk

Don’t allow your child to have messenging apps, she’s to young and to many weirdos online..to dangerous for youngsters
I had it once and got random people trying to add me, I never gave my name out to people I’m an adult it spooked me- now picture that of your 10 year old girl..defo not!!

Thanks yes it’s very scary! We’ve stuck to our No answer to her despite the pressure and this just reinforces we’ve done the right thing!

Hi there, just wanted to say that if she just wants to play around with filters and take funny pics of herself there is an app called YouCam Fun which DD who is 11 has and really enjoys. Might be worth a look - the fun of the silly faces without the social media aspect.