Why should teens not have an Instagram account?

Posted by Angelica Dowson on July 6th, 2017

This is the generation that cannot imagine life without modern technologies, the internet and particularly social networking. The latest stats show that teens aged between 13 to 17 spend 9 hours a day online and 45 percent teenage users agree that social media is a significant part of their lives. Alarmingly, our teens are spending the hyper-connected life that may lead to scores of online safety hazards.

Whether it is cyber bullying, victimization or sexual harassment, Social media has long been in news for the terrifying reasons. The immensely popular social media apps and instant messaging apps innocuously or meanly persuading our teens, tweens and adults to share their photos and more personal information like their location on the internet. The number of photos and videos shared on the social media every day goes up to 1.8 billion. Undoubtedly, this is a huge figure!

One of the most popular and widespread platforms of photo sharing is Instagram where more than 95 million photos and videos are shared per day and over 40 billion photos and videos have been shared since its conception. There were more than 282 million selfies posted on the photo-sharing site as of December 2016. Launched in 2010 and acquired by Facebook in 2012, Instagram has over 700 million Instagrammers out of which 23.4 percent Instagrammers report having been cyberbullied. In short, there is a dire need for parents to aware of all trendy instant messengers.

What is Instagram about?

Instagram is a photo sharing application allowing users to share photos and videos publicly or privately using a mobile phone or personal computer. Compared to other social media platforms, Instagram users are more 20 times more engaged than Twitter and 15 times than Facebook. This application is particularly designed for them who love taking pictures and uploading them right away to show them to others. It also allows you to instantly share your photo or video on Facebook, Twitter and other services as well.

Instagram Hazards for Teens

Like many other social networking sites, Instagram also has both benefits and risks. The major risk is that when you share something on this platform, it remains there forever. You might upload something and then regret it later because it embarrassed you or put someone’s privacy at risk. 

Sharing Personal Information 

To make an Instagram profile, the user has to share some personal information like first name, last name, birthday, gender, location and contact number. The exposed information can be misused by the strangers or most probably by the bullies unless the privacy settings have been made.

Location Tagging

Instagram allows the users to tag a photo with a specific geographical location, and this is another risky feature that younger kids should not use. It is like telling your exact physical location to the strangers and it needs not to mention how risky it can be.

Public Photos

The default setting of the Instagram profile is Public which means anyone can follow you and any image shared can be seen by the other Instagrammers. It can be dangerous if the public images give a bully any clue about your kid’s school, home, play area or after school hangouts. So, if your kid is using Instagram make sure he/she use the privacy settings to have a better control.

Impersonation

Impersonation means pretending to be some other person for the purpose of entertainment or fraud, and this is what happens on Instagram. It is not hard for a bully to hold up an Instagram photo of your kid and set up a fake account featuring racy photos and swears words. Teens do not think such thing takes place until it does.

Age-restricted content

Instagram is loaded with photos and videos and unfortunately, there is not any way to filter erotic images or adult material shared on a feed that your underage kid might follow.

What can Parents do?

Unless you are lucky enough having a kid who is not much interested in the social media and photo sharing, there are certain things you need to be conscious about. Have discussions with your younger children about Instagram and other social networking sites, and start with some open ended questions like why it is important to have an Instagram account? What can be the risks of sharing your photos with others?  Such discussion will help your kids to stay mindful not just online but in the real life as well.   

Author Bio:

Angelica is serving as senior editor and analyst at spy software for mobile phone. She has tremendous expertise in kids monitoring, employee monitoring, business management, and business security. The series of published articles on global forums are the testimonies that she is expressive and can naturally convince readers through her creative works. Follow her on Twitter @angelicadowson2