The Ultimate Guide on Protecting Children from Adult Social Media

What Are the Popular Adult Social Media Among Children?

Today there are many social media sites and apps designed for adults' use. They are open to any kind of content anyone wants to post. This makes them bad for children who are still at a growing age. Let's look at the popular adult social media apps and sites among children.

Adult Social Media Sites that are Popular among Children:

Reddit

Reddit can be termed as the wild west of social media sites. Although it is focused on news and entertainment-related posts, it does not censure posts which makes it open for people to share adult-specific content. This makes it not good for children. However, being one of the earlier social media sites it quite popular and has a large portion of teenagers as users. These teenagers on the site may end up being exposed to content that they should not see.

Minds

Minds is a cryptocurrency-based social media. The fact that it allows users to make some money through their posts makes it quite attractive to enterprising teenagers. However, unlike most other social media platforms it does not have strict policy guidelines for what users can post. Many users take advantage of this less strict posting environment to share contents that are adult only with each other. This makes it not suitable for your children who might end up being exposed to content that they should not see at their age.

Steemit

Like Minds, this is another unique social media platform that empowers users to earn through their content. This makes it popular among enterprising individuals including children. However, unlike popular sites such as Facebook, you won't have any problem posting adult content on Steemit. This makes it unsuitable for children who may end up getting content that is not suitable for their tender age.

Mastodon

This is a popular open-source social media site that teenagers love. It is simple to use and makes it easy to interact with millions of people across the world. It also brings together people of diverse backgrounds to share a wide range of content with making the experience exciting. However, with such a large number of users the site is dangerous to children who may come into contact with content they should not. This is particularly because the site does not censure adult X-rated posts.

Adult Social Media Apps Popular with Children:

Snapchat

Snapchat is quite popular with teens although it's designed for adult demographics. It is the perfect app for sharing photos and videos and this is the pull factor for the younger demographics. It also offers many features that help enhance the photos and videos users share. However, because this makes it the perfect channel that adults can target younger users with inappropriate content, the question "is Snapchat safe for kids" comes to many parents' minds.

Tiktok

This is another popular video-sharing platform with younger users. It allows users to create and share short videos. With short videos of about 30 seconds, users can share as many video clips as they want. This means that users can share adult-targeted content on the side as the censuring of what is shared is slightly relaxed and many contents are not fit for underage users who find their way on the app. This makes Tiktok a bad app for teenagers and younger children who often use the platform.

Yubo

This is a dating app that admits underage boys and girls from 12 years and older. It is quite popular as it feels like a cross between Tinder and Snapchat. While the site says that they separate children from adults chances are adults can join the children section by falsifying their age. This makes it a dangerous app for children. This is even though it is marketed as a platform to meet new people and make friends.

Telegram

This is another app that may appear to be harmless but may not be the right fit for your children. It is a simple messaging app designed for easy sending of messages and sharing important information. The problem is that users can often create channels for sharing adult content and even scripted messages. This can be a danger sign as children on the site are bound to encounter such channels and thus be exposed to content that they should not see at their age. Therefore, many parents are looking for how to hack Telegram on phones.

Is Social Media Dangerous for My Child?

Many people consider social media a necessary evil. The truth is that while social media offers many benefits to users, it also has its disadvantages. Most social media sites were developed and designed with adults in mind. This makes them not the right fit for children. However, allowing your child to use social media can offer many benefits.

Benefits of Social Media

Using social media offers some benefits to kids. Some of the important benefits include:

Social media as a learning tool:

Social media is an important learning tool not just for adults but for children too. Using social media in itself helps children explore the internet and learn how it works. It is also a great platform for kids in the same class to meet up and discuss classwork, share ideas and learn from one another. It thus helps your child not only with their academics but also helps them learn how the world works.

Connects kids:

Learning social skills is a very important part of growing up. Social media helps make it easy for kids to meet other kids and create new friendships. This helps kids build confidence as they interact with one another and forms friendship that may last a lifetime.

Promotes creativity:

Social media is a great place where kids can share their work, receive positive criticism and further develop their creativity. Many social media platforms encourage young people to share their creative works such as poems, paintings and songs. These works are then seen by millions of other kids and adults who offer insightful comments and some may even win them awards. Some of the world’s prodigies have been discovered on social media.

Creates critical thinkers:

Social media is made up of both the good and the ugly in equal measures. If children are trained on how to use social media effectively then they will know how to question everything they see on those sites. This will go a long way in helping children become critical thinkers.

Dangers of Social Media to Children

Despite offering benefits to kids, social media can also be a huge threat to them. There are many dangers of adult social media lurking around when kids are left to explore the internet freely. Some of the dangers of social media to children include:

Social media is addictive:

This is true both to adults and to children. Using social media can be addictive to an individual. When youngsters start using social media at a very young age as their brains are still developing they are likely to have a bad case of addiction. It is therefore important for parents to protect their kids from this kind of addiction.

Can lead to mental health problems:

Psychologists have documented evidence that spending more than three hours on social media can lead to mental health problems among children. When on social media young people tend to believe everything they see. Makes them want to measure up to their peers who are faking their social media statuses. This can have an impact not only on the mental health of the individuals but also on their wellbeing as well.

Destroy Real-life relationships:

When children get addicted to social media they tend to spend most of their free time on the platforms. This in turn destroys their relationships in real life. Children addicted to social media tend to have bad relationships with their parents, siblings and other kids because they have no time for such relationships.

Bad influence:

They say that "bad company corrupts good morals". This is true on social media than anywhere else. The kids your child hangs with on social media are likely to influence your child's behaviour and if they are bad kids then your child will be bad. There are many well-documented instances where kids were influenced to commit suicide or in some cases crime by their friends on social media.

Access to criminals:

Criminals now prey on children on social media. There are many documented evidences across the world where young girls have been lured by sex predators on social media. In other cases, human trafficking criminals have used social media to lure their victims.

Cyberbullying:

Children of a different race or those who may appear different have been bullied on social media. This kind of bullying can have a huge impact on the lives of the children involved as it is done where adults may not see. In some cases, it has gotten so bad to the point of destroying the self-esteem of the victims.

Negative self-consciousness:

Social media addiction can foster a negative form of social consciousness. Children want to be accepted. This can cause children to try and model themselves on individuals they admire on social medial. This can lead to a lot of emotional problems as they may fail to measure up to the make-belief life of their idols.

How to Protect My Child from Adult Social Media?

It should be the goal of every parent to protect their children from the dangers of adult social media. To protect your child from the dangers of social media, follow these methods:

Method 1: Using KidsGuard Pro for Android to Protect Child - Best Effective Way

The best method to protect your kids from adult social media is to use KidsGuard Pro for Android Parental Control. This is an android app that comes with many features that can help you determine what your child should see online. If you bought your child a smartphone then you should consider installing this app. This is because it will help you in protecting them by:

Showing you their Browser History

The internet is constantly changing. New websites, social media sites, and social media apps are created every day. Therefore you need to know which part of the internet your child visits and what they do there. The browser history feature will ensure that you can see what your children browsed, also, you can see incognito history even your kids in incognito search mode.

Photos and Videos Preview

If your child knows that you are monitoring their internet use they are likely to avoid using the internet when they want to engage in things they know you won't approve of. In this case, they are likely to share photos and videos with friends using other methods such as Bluetooth or cables. The photo and video monitoring features will help you be able to see photos on your child's devices and thus be able to provide the right advice even if they avoid the internet completely.

App Activities

Today most adult social media sites have apps to cater for mobile users. KidsGuard Pro for Android comes with an app activity feature that will help you monitor all the things your child does on social media. With this feature, you can rest assured that no matter the app your child installs on their device you will be in the know.

Monitor NowView Demo

Method 2: Other Ways to Protect My Child

Talk to your Kids about Social Media

Children care about their future just like parents do. But sometimes they behave as if they don't especially if they don't understand the consequences of their action. Having an open dialogue with them about social media, the benefits and the dangers those platforms pose will help. If the children understand at a personal level the dangers they may face then they are likely to behave responsibly when online and will more like ask questions when in doubt.

Keep a Close Eye on your kids

Children are likely to act out what they see on social media. Make sure you closely monitor your kids. Take note of any behaviour chance and dig deeper. It helps when you have an open communication policy with your kids. This way you will talk openly about things and they will be open about any problems they have. If it is related to social media then guide them accordingly.

Set Social Media Use Rules

It is important to have rules on how social media is used. If you buy smartphones for your kids then make sure you set out rules on how to use the phones.  This will help your child understand what they should not access and what is ok for them. This should be part of the wider conversation of social media and the internet in general.

Use Privacy Settings

Smartphones nowadays come with features that block sites one can visit, filter content and even hide the individual's location and other details. Make sure you use such settings whenever possible. This will protect your child from the dangers lurking on the internet.

Use the Available Cyberbullying Resources

Cyberbullying is one of the most dangerous aspects of social networking. There are a variety of tools available to help you monitor and stop cyberbullying. Most crucial, talk to your child about it so that they don't grow up to be bullies and that they understand how to block and avoid bullies online.

Extra Sources: Social Networks for Kids

To ensure that your child gets the benefit of social media there are several platforms designed for kids. Some of the best kid-centric social media include:

GoBubble

GoBubble is the perfect social media channel for children below 11 years. It puts the school at the center of everything letting your children meet others of the same age and collaborate on school work. It also has some child-centered traditions such as pen pals.  In addition, it comes with many safety features that ensure all inappropriate messages, videos and posts are removed at once. It is therefore the perfect channel for parents to teach their kids about social media.

PopJam

For 11 to 13 years olds PopJam is the perfect social media channel. It all children of this age to meet one another and play quizzes, create art, play games and do a lot other fun activities for this age group. To ensure the safety of the users all content on the platform is monitored and any inappropriate one removed immediately. This makes this channel the best for parents of early teens who want to enjoy the benefits of using social media.

Conclusion

The impact of social media on our lives is enormous. This is why more than a half of the population uses it. However, it can pose some grave risks to your child. Therefore you need to limit how your child uses social media. In this article, we had discussed some of the best methods to protect your child from the dangers of social media such as using KidsGuard Pro parental control to guarantee the safety of your child.