Posted on

Dangers of Talking to Strangers Online

Dangers of Talking to Strangers Online

When you see your child texting or chatting online, you may assume they are communicating with friends and family. But that may not always be the case.

A study from Cox Communications found that 69% of teens regularly receive personal messages online from strangers. Many parents may be unaware of this because only 21% of teens who receive messages from strangers tell a trusted adult.

Kids aren’t talking about encounters with online strangers, but parents need to.

Know the Facts

If you think your child is safe from online stranger solicitation, you are wrong. The San Diego District Attorney (SDDA) reported that over 45 million children ages 10-17 use the Internet, and among them:

  • close to 60% of teens have received an e-mail or instant message from a stranger, and half have communicated back
  • one in five has been sexually solicited

The odds that your child or teen has encountered a solicitation from a stranger online are high, and there is also a chance that those messages were inappropriate or lewd.

Restrict Stranger Chat Sites

There are a few social sites that promote chatting with strangers. Parents should familiarize themselves with those sites so they can recognize if their children are using them.

  • Omegle – Randomly connects users with strangers and allows them to chat via text or video chat. It is known to often include sexual material.
  • Imeetzu – Randomly connects users with strangers, requires no registration, and permits text, video, and group chats.
  • Tohla – Opens chat windows within the site for chatting one-on-one with strangers.
  • Bazoocam – Is an international chat site that pairs users with strangers for video chat sessions.

Parents should consider banning these sites, so their children fully understand the danger associated with communicating through these channels.

Educate Yourself on Chat Lingo

Because some kids and teens don’t fully understand the dangers of talking to strangers online, they may engage in this behavior. If they know you disapprove, they may attempt to hide it. So educate yourself on the chat lingo they may use to hide their conversations.

ChatSlang has a full list of terms that parents should recognize. Among them:

  • 9 or C9 – Parent in room
  • CD9 – Parents are watching
  • SPROS – Stop parents reading over shoulder
  • KPC – Keeping parents clueless
  • ASLP – Age/Sex/Location/Picture

These are only a few of the acronyms kids use to attempt to keep their parents in the dark. So keep an eye out for any unusual acronyms and question your child if you don’t understand their messages.

Take Safety Precautions

Educating yourself on the dangers of online stranger encounters is the first step in protecting you kids. The next step is educating your kids, and that means talking to them about it.

Related: Protecting Kids from Internet Stranger Danger

The SDDA reports that, “71% of parents stop supervising Internet use by their children after the age of 14, yet 72% of all Internet-related missing children cases involve children who are 15 years of age or older.”

It’s important to continue to protect and educate your children even into their teens. Keep lines of communication open so they feel comfortable coming to you in the event a stranger contacts them online, and stay connect with apps like MamaBear Family Safety (available for iPhones and Andriods) that helps you see who is talking to your kids in social media environments.

 

Posted on

Cyberbullying Awareness Week in St. Pete

Cyberbullying Awareness Week in St. Pete | MamaBear App

The dangers of cyberbullying will be front and center in St. Petersburg this week as the Florida city hosts Cyberbullying Awareness Week. The five-day event is taking place in Pinellas County just over the bridge from the MamaBear’s Tampa headquarters.

Set to inspire prevention and intervention efforts across schools and homes in Pinellas County, Cyberbullying Awareness Week will include a series of free events and a large celebration on Friday, September 26th at the St. Petersburg Coliseum.

Though the events include fun for all ages (live music, free food, games, contests, and more), everything is centered around one important goal — “bring awareness to cyberbullying and encourage youth and adults to use integrity when using technology devices,” as posted by the organizers Gulf Coast Giving and the Pinellas County Board of Commissioners.

What Is Cyberbullying?

Cyberbullying is any online interaction where one party makes the other party feel embarrassed, harassed, or threatened. It occurs through online and digital platforms such as social media, text messages and emails.

Cyberbullying is common (DoSomething.org found that nearly 43% of kids have been bullied online), and victims may experience depression with some extreme cases resulting  in an unfortunate suicide.

Gulf Coast Giving, a nonprofit focused on volunteerism and event host, reports that suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people. They hope to change that. By educating adults and youth, they plan to empower the community to take a stand against cyberbullying by knowing how to identify and stop online harassment.

How You Can Help Stop Cyberbullying

Recognize the Signs – According to Gulf Coast Giving’s Cyberbullying Awareness Campaign, there are many signs that someone may exhibit when they are being bullied. A victim of cyberbullying may:

  • display unusual anger, sadness and depression after using the computer or electronic device
  • exit or click out of a window on their computer screen when a person walks by
  • have trouble sleeping or experience other sleeping disturbances
  • experience a decline in school homework or grades
  • exhibit unusual mood swings
  • have headaches and/or an upset stomach
  • become reclusive and anti-social
  • begin losing or avoiding friends

Adults and youth need to keep an eye out for these types of behavior and act immediately if they find a youth in a bullying situation.

Stop, Block & Tell – Kids, teens, and adults should all know the best way to handle a situation with an online bully. It’s as simple as stop, block, and tell.

  • Stop the conversation. Responding can make the situation worse.
  • Block the user so that communication is cut off.
  • Tell a trusted adult or parent.

Related: Social Media, Bullying, and What You Can Do to Help

Know Where to Get Help – Reporting cyberbullying is important. Consider contacting local law enforcement, school guidance counselors, youth minister, or any local organizations that work with both victims and bullies.

For more resources, parents and youth can call the Crisis Hotline 1-800-273-TALK.

Continue to Spread Awareness – One of the biggest problems with cyberbullying is the reluctance of its victims to speak up. Through education and awareness, Gulf Coast Giving hopes to continue to encourage both those being bullied and those witnessing bullying to speak up.

Parents also need to be aware of the dangers of online bullying and equip themselves with tools to protect their children. The can use apps like MamaBear Family Safety to connect with their children’s social accounts to make sure they are experiencing healthy and safe online engagement. The app is free for available for iPhone and Andriod devices.

You can learn more about the Pinellas County Cyberbullying Awareness week on the Gulf Coast Giving website.

Image Credit: Gulf Coast Giving

Posted on

Parents Are Most Distracting to Teen Drivers

Parents Are Most Distracting to Teen Drivers | MamaBear App

A whopping 86% of high school juniors and seniors admit to using their cell phones while driving, according to a statistic presented by American Psychological Association.

That is dangerous data when paired with another statistic. Twenty-six percent of the nation’s car accidents were caused by the use of cell phones, per the National Safety Council’s annual injury and fatality report.

With so many teens using their phones while driving, and a high correlation between accidents and distracted driving, instilling safe driving habits in teens is becoming increasingly important. That starts with parents — because they could be the root of the problem.

In a recent presentation “Is That Mom on the Phone? — Teen Drivers and Distraction,” the American Psychological Association explains that parents may contribute to the amount of distracted driving their kids do.

APA reviewed current data on the topic and conducted research of their own by surveying 395 teens, and found that teens often use their phone while driving because of influence by their parents.

Parents Often Set Poor Examples by Driving, Talking, and Texting

Teens aren’t the only drivers using phones while driving. Adults, including parents, frequently engage in distracted driving.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention released data that 69% of US drivers reported they had talked on their phone while driving within 30 days of being surveyed.

With examples of distracted driving all around them, teens tend to increasingly replicate the habit the longer they drive. Thirty-four percent of drivers ages 15-17 said they didn’t use a cell phone while driving. While only 10% of 18-year-olds said they didn’t use their phone while driving.

When teens see so many examples of distracted driving, they begin to believe it is common. Parents need to reinforce that distracted driving is dangerous by setting an example and never driving while texting or talking.

Parents Pressure Their Teens to Answer Their Calls

Parents often expect their teens to answer their calls or respond to their texts right away. This pressures teens into thinking that they always need to answer, even if they are driving.

All but one teenage driving demographic surveyed by APA said that parents were the number one contact they talked to while driving.

Teens talk to their parents more often than they talk to their friends while driving. Fifty percent of 18-year-olds said their phone time was spent talking primarily to parents.

Related: Monitor Teen Driving with the MamaBear Driving Monitor App

Parents Can Help Decrease Distractive Driving Time

Successfully teaching teens how to incorporate safe driving practices starts with the parents. A few ways parents can help instill safe driving habits in their teen include the following.

  • Be a good role model. Don’t talk or text while you are driving.

  • Ask your kids if they are driving. Within the first 30 seconds of a phone call with your teen, ask them if they are driving. If they are, tell them to pull over and call you back.

  • Put the phone in the back seat. Teach your kids to put the phone in the back seat while driving. (Even better, parents can practice this themselves.)

  • Use a monitoring application. Programs and apps can help prevent distracted driving. MamaBear Family Safety App uses GPS so parents can connect with their kids without making phone calls (and also monitor car speeds). Other apps that disable phones while vehicles are in motion are also available.

  • Understand that kids might miss your call when they are driving. Don’t repeatedly call if your teen doesn’t answer right away. Give them time to pull over and make a call.

Make it easier to connect with your teen and encourage them to be a safe driver with the MamaBear Family Safety App (available for iPhone and Andriod).

 

Posted on

MamaBear’s List of Apps Parents Should Ban

MamaBear’s List of Apps Parents Should Ban | MamaBear App

Social media apps that offer anonymous profiles are becoming popular with preteens and teens. It may seem like online anonymity would offer protection and increased safety for users, but it does quite the opposite.

Apps that allow users to interact anonymously create a dangerous online arena where aggressive users can bully and harass without repercussion and casual users can accidentally connect with dangerous strangers.

The following apps have received negative publicity for their inability to moderate cyber-bullying, and many parents are calling for them to revisit their harassment policies and systems. But it seems that the companies are not reacting to the potential dangers quick enough.

Foutune.com tested Secret’s anti-bullying system, and it failed. The site was unable to identify and remove the inappropriate content they posted, even after other users added more negative and harassing comments.

Since Secret and other similar platforms don’t include systems that can appropriately protect your child from dangerous users and harassment, MamaBear recommends not allowing the following social media apps be installed on your child’s phone.

MamaBear’s List of Apps Parents Should Ban

Yik Yak: This app shows a feed of updates that people in the surrounding geographic area have posted. Users can comment on posts or upvote them to raise them to the top of the list. Although the app is for users 17 and over, younger kids regularly create accounts. They use the platform like a gossip bulletin board and write mean things that may get upvoted to the top of the list and be difficult to take down.

Ask.fm: Users post questions and answers on other users’ questions. The site offers options to share posts on Facebook. Users often hide behind the site’s anonymity and post harassing text and photo responses to questions, or post mean questions that call out people by name.

Tinder: It shows a stream of photos of users that are located with a certain mile radius. Users say yes or no to each photo, indicating if they would like to engage with the person. If both users say yes, the app allows them to connect. Younger users should not create accounts as Tinder is intended for an audience 17 and over and is often used by adults as a “hook-up” app.

Whisper: The app allows users to anonymously share text and photos. It shows which users are nearby and allows private communicate which creates safety issues for young users who many unintentionally connect with dangerous or older users. Whisper is intended for users 12 and over, and iTunes rates it for the same age group due to “Infrequent/Mild Profanity or Crude Humor, Infrequent/Mild Sexual Content and Nudity, Infrequent/Mild Alcohol, Tobacco, or Drug Use or References, and Infrequent/Mild Mature/Suggestive Themes.”

Related: The Dangers of Messaging Apps

Secret: Users can post “secrets” which are shared with friends and comment on other users’ secrets. If a friend “likes” a secret, it is then shared with their list of friends. Users can’t see who shares secrets or posts comments. Many users have complained the site does not stop anonymous users from sending harassing and bullying comments.

These apps are not set up to protect young users, and they do not have the proper systems to flag inappropriate use or moderate comments. They enable bullying and have created a dangerous social space that your kids should avoid.

Talk to your kids about acceptable social apps and actions, and ban these apps. Then protect them by connecting with their social media accounts through MamaBear Family Safety app – currently monitoring Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. The free app, available for both Andriods and iPhones, makes it easy to review how you child is interacting on social media.