Talk to me about Snapchat please

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Predictable issue… I have a 13 yo DD who wants Snapchat. Reckons loads of friends either have it or will be allowed once they are 13. Says she’s left out because she doesn’t.

On the other hand, I’ve read and heard a bunch of horror stories about Snapchat due to the disappearing messages, contacts from randoms, emphasis on sending photos etc.

I believe some of these things (eg disappearing messages and location sharing) can now be switched off using parental settings? Anyone done this, does it help?

Any info or experiences welcome. I don’t want to say a knee jerk no but I don’t want to open a can of worms either. Eldest child so navigating all this afresh. Thank you

If there’s any way you can block or have an alert when she tries get it please do

Snapchat is evil especially for girls

I can block it no problem as she can’t get new apps without a parent putting in a password (which she doesn’t know). So she won’t be able to get it unless I say yes.

What kind of evil do you mean?

Honestly, OP, as a secondary teacher just say no. The fallout from that is far easier than the potential fallout from the myriad of issues with Snapchat.

My DD is 12 and won't be having any social media next year whether she wants it or not.

Bullies' paradise with disappearing messages and pics.

I allow my DD15 one hour per day on snapchat; sometimes she spends a bit more and has to ask me to approve. I put her account and location as private. I had to put these restrictions when she was 14 and had a chat with her as it was impacting her mental health seeing what other people was doing all the time.

I could not stop it or forbid it completely as they do communicate through it. I hate social media though and it worries me how much time kids spend on screens, including watching Netflix.

DD15 I has a max of 4 hours in mobile phone, 1 hour max snapchat, 30 min TikTok. Phone stops at 9pm on weekdays, All through family controls on iphone. No phone allowed in bedrooms at night time, feeling left out.

No restrictions on laptops or ipads but wifi switches off at 10:30pm
everyday.

DD1 is 18.5 and I think I lost the battle with screens when she was 17 as she needed them to study; she keeps them in her bedroom and spends far too much time watching Netflix shows, and reading on the screens according to. She is not into snapchat or tiktok or social media though. Hoping University will sort her out in terms of watching too much Netflix, currently on a gap year and working part time.

Just look in youtube regarding restrictions; but hold on as longer as you can and speak with her about safety if you decide to allow it.

Thank you. Yes if I were to allow it it would be for a very limited time per day.

For example at present she has YouTube for 10 minutes - not enough for scrolling but enough that if there’s one specific clip everyone is chatting about she can watch it. She has whatsapp for 40 min, enough to keep up with friends’ messages and organise social life but not enough to spend ages scrolling whatsapp channels.

I would happily say no if it was just social media. The problem is that her friends now seem to be using Snapchat to message each other instead of WhatsApp so she feels left out.

I am not sure if it’s worse than whatapp if I can turn on privacy settings (so no random contacts, no location sharing) and turn off disappearing messages. Or is it?? Am I missing something?

My 14 year refuses to ever download it. She reckons there’s a type of teen that uses it.

For whatever reason, that’s the app of choice when it comes to bullying and violent videos, highlighted in the local news recently.

I initially refused all social media. I am a teacher and it is the bane of my professional life...but she was left out of arrangements etc as that is her friends' main way of communicating. She is in secondary and was genuinely the only one in her class not to have it. There have been improvements in safety features in the last couple of years and I did some research on this. I now have my own account (which I don't use) but it means I have access to the snapchat Family Centre feature which gives me an overview of her account, view her friends, add safety features such as privacy, disabling location sharing etc. We had a proper discussion about safe and appropriate use. Messages stay for 7 days and I periodically check these. She tells me every time she accepts a friend and I check as these have to be 'real life friends'. Childline website has good info/links to safe social media use and the info on snapchat website is also quite good. She doesn't have tiktok etc, but because this is used to communicate with actual friends, I decided to manage this as safely as I could rather than veto it outright. I felt she was mature enough to now use it appropriately...and understand the consequences if she didn't. So far so good...but I have no bones about uninstalling if there is anything that concerns me and she knows this. Good luck OP. It's a tricky one isn't it.

Dd1 is almost 15 and has had Snapchat for a couple of months. I monitor her phone but not as much as I used to as she is getting older. She is generally sensible and tended not to want to join in with large groups on WhatsApp (she generally avoided any type of conversation tbh). We had a chat and decided it was ok. I did consider getting a parents account, but DD said she would keep all location settings off.

It was mainly people from her sports clubs (that are actually younger) that she wanted to get Snapchat for, though she does also have most of her school friends on there.

Dd2 is 12 almost 13, she isn't mature enough for it yet, plus she is far more influenced by her peers than dd1. She asks for a different social media app every other week from Instagram, Pinterest to Snapchat. Apparently everyone has them all and everyone has absolutely no restrictions on their phones at all, and can use them for what then want, when they want, and for however long they want. I know neither are true.

My daughter is 13 and doesn’t have it. I actually asked her if she wanted to talk about it when she was 13 as I’m aware several of her friends have Snapchat and TikTok and she said just seeing what they’re doing on there has convinced her she wants no part of it. She’s not super social though so WhatsApp is plenty for her to make plans with the few people she likes.

It’s genuinely a cesspool and all the worst stories from her best friend come from there. She comes to me with issues now and again as she’s known me for years and it’s brutal.

It escalates from chat to bullying and sex crimes within hours

Thank you all. To be honest I am playing a delaying game with DD and hoping that once it’s no longer a novelty her interest will wear off. At the moment a bunch of her friends just got it so they are all on it but I’m hoping they will go back to WhatsApp at some point. However if that doesn’t happen and she feels they have all moved across I’ll need to consider the options.

@Cleaningismycardio you said messages stay for 7 days, is this a setting you can set up? As from googling / snapchat website I have found that individual chats can be set to not disappear, but I haven’t found a way to apply this setting automatically for all chats.

Snapchat is the worse one out of all the social media. Absolutely wouldn't let my teen use it

My dd had something awful
happen to her at 14 and started taking drugs- cocaine and worse. Neither myself or her dad had any experience of drugs and not in our wildest dreams would have imagined our lovely, clever girl with a kind extended family would take drugs at all. We later found out she had brought them all from Snapchat - she said any drug was available and was delivered to our house in 15 minutes
no I know this is extreme but be so so careful with what they have on their phone

That is horrifying on many levels allwillbe. I really hope your DD is doing ok now and thank you for sharing.

Thank you and yes ups and downs but hopefully moving forward. I am not trying to scaremonger at all but we were so naive as parents as she was such an easy responsible child .When things kicked off and I started looking at her phone unbeknownst to her -to say it was horrifying was an understatement. I feel pretty evangelical about phones and teens and maybe that’s unfair as some teens navigate things fine but for those that do not for whatever reason it can be a nightmare
I suppose I feel we let her down by not checking earlier and when we did drug dependancy was there- so I want other parents to be aware it can happen to anyone’s child.
Lastly, we found that a lot of parental controls were useless- vpns were regularly used and her friends and her could access the dark web.
I hope you make a decision you are happy with. Good luck

Thank you

I have said it’s a no for now. Will revisit in summer but I suspect it will be a no then too.

Me and my partner use Snapchat as he works away so we use it as texting but with photos of each other/the kids/the cats so we still feel connected.
The amount of random men I have add me is ridiculous. I don’t share my username anywhere, all of my social media is private with few friends and they still manage to add me. I just delete it/decline it but a 13 year-old might not know who is and isn’t their friend.
I also know of at least 2 children who have been bullied on there because of the disappearing messages.
Girls are susceptible to pressure of sending photos and the receiver screenshots them straight away.
I think the longest you can have chats for is 24hrs but the other person can change that before sending you a Snapchat anyway so it’s not failsafe.
I’d rather have a stroppy teenager who is safe than a damaged one.

4 hours a day?! If she wakes at 7ish that’s almost a 3rd of her day on her phone

When I was still teaching, I saw Snapchat causing too many problems.

On another thread, I've already told of the time two 13 yr old girls were getting messages from "Tommy" who was "only 11".

One of the girls showed me her phone. "Tommy" was sending dick pics. Our school contacted the police.

I just wouldn't. To me it's not worth the risk. They have other means of communicating. A quick Google of Snapchat crime will give you an idea of why not.

www.nspcc.org.uk/about-us/news-opinion/2025/data-shows-how-criminals-are-using-private-messaging-platforms-to-manipulate-and-groom-children/

honestly, it's like Canute pushing back the tide to take the approach that a 13yo+ teen can't have Snapchat.

I agree it's a nightmare. However, it is literally how my teens communicate. They don't use any other forum to do so, except occasionally TikTok.

It is also part of their social norms - the streaks etc, snapping back with random, pointless photos. Makes no sense to me, of course, but that's how it should be.

PP are correct. There is potential for much harm. However, I believe that part of our duty as parents is to help teens navigate situations, risk assess and make good choices.

My DD never had a single issue, no bullying, no inappropriate requests or behaviour. All fine.

My two DS (currently 16 and 14) have faced various issues. These have included group chats with inappropriate content (nothing awful, or legally wrong but unpleasant language and general goings on), sharing of images that they shouldn't, imo (nothing sexual, or inappropriate but just not very nice or taking photos of one of their siblings without permission and sharing that and so on), being added to random group chats (that absolutely could have been serious but they saw that immediately and didn't engage).

By far the biggest issue is how utterly addicted they are to it; there is a continuous battle with them to manage their usage e.g. not constantly snapping so they can't use it in the car for example (I want them to talk to me), obviously not at meals either, they have screen limits (this still includes the 16 yo, reluctantly) and no access at all after 10.

I find it ridiculous I still have screen limits on a 16 yo phone but I took them off for about 4 months and it was crazy. He would sneak out of his bedroom at night to get to his phone. He is aware that if he can show the ability to self-regulate, he can have restrictions limited but so far, he hasn't been able to do this.

I'm not in favour of banning it. It's a communication tool, it works very well on that basis. It's fine to say use WhatsApp etc but none of my DC children go near WhatsApp, and if they aren't on Snapchat, they would miss out on events, plans, organised meetups and so on. For some DC, that might not matter but it does for most.

The disappearing messages can be an issue (you can change settings but it's hardly worth it - the other person in the chat can change them back and they will - teens don't want their messages saved). However, I tend to check my youngest son's phone most days, he's aware, and I get a fair sense of what's going on, even with disappearing messages. It's fairly easy to see what might be problematic, and what's not.

how much time do you spend on your phone?

Yes I'm aware we are adults. However, the actual time shouldn't be the issue - for reference, my DSs get 2 hours a day on their phones on weekdays, 3.5 at weekends, but they also have ipads, and watch TV, and have an xBox (rarely allowed on that during the week).

They play a lot of sports so this automatically limits their time.

I am more concerned with a) how they are watching screens i.e. using their screen time to watch sports videos - which they do a lot - I don't have a great issue with and b) how they are overall - are they engaging in family life, talking to me respectfully, doing their household jobs and so on.

I'm not saying screentime shouldn't be a thing, I agree with it and do it myself. But making a point about the amount of screentime isn't as important as the overall picture about how they present and how they use screens.

Speaking for myself, I often have something easy to watch on while I'm doing household jobs or cooking, on my phone. I think this is fine, for me, however the time I can lose scrolling mindlessly on IG is more of a concern, and isn't good for me. It's the same with teens.

Not four hours. I check messages in the morning. Then at work I’m not on it. I am conscious not to be on it too much around the kids so its mostly sits on a shelf until after they are in bed and I have done boring things like washing and the dishwasher, but that’s when I either watch an hour of tv or read. I probably go on it more at the weekends but definitely not four hours. I’m 35 and in my circle everyone seemed to make a conscious effort a few years ago to spend less time on their phone and it kind of stuck. I remember how good it felt the first few weeks it felt like I had so much free time, tou dont realise how much you subconsciously check and reach for it until you keep it away from you/not on you at all times.