Online friends

[dancinginpurplerain]

My DD14 has an Instagram fan account with over 1,000 followers. This is a public account but we monitor it and make sure she only posts things relating to the fandom, not any personal details. She has struck up friendships with some of her followers and has conversations via Instagram direct messages. I don't really understand this side of things but we've spoken about online safety and people not necessarily being who they say they are online etc. We've spoke about the differences between online and real life friendships. She prefers her online friends as they have a shared common interest and understand her. I'm wondering how common this is among teens - do your teens have an active online life with people they don't know in real life?

I've recently found out DD gave her phone number to 2 of the girls she's been talking to online. We've said we're not happy with this and have said this shouldn't happen again. I worry about people finding out more about her/being able to track her location. She thinks IABU but am I?

People can only 'track' her (not completely the correct term) if she consents to find friends, which would in turn give her their location, which no paedo would want. Trust that she won't be a dumbfuck I say.

My dd 16 doesn't as we don't allow a public profile, and she also isn't allowed to add or accept anyone who she doesn't directly know. This started when she was 14 and has just never changed.
I'm pretty sure you can't find out people's location via Instagram but you can on snapchat and I presume she has this? I would be concerned she is giving out her phone number to randoms she doesn't even know, to me that shows that she isn't savvy or sensible enough to have a public profile with 'friends' she doesn't even know.

She doesn't have Snapchat - just Instagram. She has a private account for real life friends as well as the public one which is purely for her fan obsession. My husband follows her on both and makes sure she's not sharing personal information on her public account.

I'm concerned about her lack of judgement too and the fact she broke our rules and shared her number. She refuses to accept there are any risks about sharing her number. I appreciate she may not be 'tracked' as such but if it's ok to share a number, she might also share other information.

it's a very tricky one. it does have a lot to do with maturity and awareness.

DS will not have anything to do with Instagram, FB or Snapchat. he covers his camera on his phone. He's very tech savvy and is incredibly into internet safety But.....

Through his interests and work online, he has friends all over the world. he has a Twitter account mainly for promoting his work, and uses discord for massaging/group massaging and voice/Video call his friends from school and online friends (no telephone numbers needed) A year ago he found out couple of his online friends lived 40mins away. He meets up with them, regularly now.

He's met some others from different countries at events he's gone to (accompanied by us, but we where really just the chauffeur)

Another friend of his will be passing through the UK in a couple of months with his parents and they are arranging to meet up briefly.

My other DC I'm not so sure. But he doesn't really do anything on line apart from fifa. again no FB Instagram or snapchap. He's happy with his RL friends.

DS says with Instagram it's a lot easier for people to make fake accounts to groom.

I wouldn't be happy that your DD had given out her number, and would want to intervene to get more info of these friends and thier parents. not sure how you would do that though.

My DD has similar and loves online friends as they can talk about the singer etc! Think she has a couple of these groups, but has irl friends too. A lot live abroad so they’re not likely to meet. I prob would advise not to give out phone though as she may get unwanted calls.