Almost every child or teen around the world has access to or owns an Android or iPhone. Children and young people are fast learners and that makes them even more tech-savvy in the present, where humans seem to be growing more and more dependent on smartphones. But the increasing time spent on these devices by children continues to raise discourse about many of the harmful effects of this technology in the hands of naïve and sensitive minds. Children need a certain amount of space growing up, and teens, more so, but parents are legally liable for the conduct as well as for the safety of their minors.
But before you take away your child’s phone, reflect upon the fact that most kids and teens communicate with their peers through instant messaging apps and social media on smartphones, and it would considerably disrupt a child’s social life. Keeping a close watch and checking on their communication via phones seems to be the best way to preserve the safety of your children and confirm they aren’t crossing boundaries.
This software is great for keeping an eye on your children’s phones and checking information on them, as well as tracking their internet usage. Anyone may use this programmer to filter the information they need without even realizing it.
Meeting strangers
One of the biggest threats that a child’s access to IM and social media apps presents, materializes through open communication with strangers. Parents should check or spy text messages periodically to ensure that their child isn’t in touch with a dangerous individual or drug dealer posing or pretending to be a friend, or even impersonating a relative or well-wisher. Children are naturally trusting, and easy to manipulate and online messaging is a popular method for malicious actors to get a child or teen into their trap, or even unknowingly addicted to a new or dangerous drug.
Cyber harassment and bullying
About 42% of American youth have been bullied online. Instant messaging or texts are an extremely common platform through which cyberbullying and harassment take place. One of the scariest parts about bullying is that its victims are often directly or indirectly shamed into silence for the duration of, and sometimes even after the bullying takes place. If that wasn’t damaging enough, bullying continues mostly because child victims aren’t even aware that bullying s taking place, and its perpetrators continue to inflict severe mental and psychological trauma without checking. Cyberbullying can take on many forms such as body shaming, blackmail, racism, and classism and should be stopped by keeping a close eye before a child or teen sustains enough damage to resort to self-harm or addiction.
Texting while driving
Teenagers are naturally quite rebellious and as soon as they’ve obtained their driving license, they’ll want to be driving themselves. They also don’t do well with supervision and interfere from parents or guardians but their natural recklessness can seriously endanger their physical safety and lives. In a PEW survey, 34% of teens aged between 16-17 admitted that they had texted while driving and females were as likely to as males. While checking a child’s phone can’t inform a parent if they were texting while driving, phone monitoring software can. This kind of spy or parental control software combines the ability to spy text messages remotely and notify a parent if a child is active on their phone spy app while driving by providing real-time GPS location updates.
Sexually explicit messages:
Teenagers are very likely to indulge in sending sexually explicit messages including images and videos of themselves to others. Whether casual or serious, sexting can have major implications and is even punishable by law in some cases. Consent, and also a lack of idea of the actual identity of people involved in the act, can cause incur major implications. What seems like harmless sexting can usually end up becoming exploitive and damaging for a young person who is just learning to navigate the world independently. Communication of this nature may also end up becoming fodder for blackmail and cyberbullying. Parents must monitor all Instant Messaging exchanges if their teen owns and uses a smartphone to protect them from the ensuing harm and emotional or physical injury.
