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MamaBear’s Most Popular Posts in 2015

mamabear popular blog posts 2015

As digital and social media use continued to rise in 2015, MamaBear was there to explain new trends and problems to parents throughout the year. As we enter another year and look forward to even more changes to come, take a minute to recap the most important issues and posts from the MamaBear blog in 2015.

Is Instagram Safe for Kids: A Guide for Concerned Parents

is instagram safe for kids

In 2015, Instagram grew to be one of the most popular social media sites for teens. With more than 300 million users, the photo-sharing app became a platform that parents absolutely needed to be aware of. MamaBear published Is Instagram Safe for Kids: A Guide for Concerned Parents to help parents navigate the popular site and learn how to protect their children who use it.

The Hurtful Side of Social Media: Horrific Threats Via Instagram for One Teen

instagram safety for kids

Many parents still believe that social media is not a serious issue. But in our post The Hurtful Side of Social Media: Horrific Threats Via Instagram for One Teen, we looked at the real severity of danger in the digital world. The post looked into the story of one family who got school officials and police involved when their daughter started receiving death threats through Instagram. It also included tips on how parents can prevent the same thing from happening to their children.

Parents Are Oversharing on Social Media and It May Be Impacting Their Kids

Parents Oversharing Social Media

We regularly discuss dangers related to the habits of children and teens who use social media on our MamaBear blog. We flipped the coin in our post, Parents Are Oversharing on Social Media and It May Be Impacting Their Kids. In the post, we looked at why parents share on social media, how often they share, and how their over sharing can negatively affect their children.

Preparing Your Teen Driver to Hit the Road

Preparing Your Teen Driver to Hit the Road

MamaBear strives to protect teens online and on the road. In our post, Preparing Your Teen Driver to Hit the Road, we covered the most important considerations for parents with a new teen driver. From reviewing common driving mistakes and setting driving rules to creating a driver’s contract, the post gives parents a full prep lesson before they pass the keys over to their teen.

How To Use Bear2Bear – MamaBear’s Customer Referral Program

mamabear referral program

In 2015, we encouraged our users to share the benefits of our app with their friends and family. In the post, How to Use Bear2Bear —  MamaBear’s Customer Referral Program, we explained how parents could use our referral program to become a premium member for free by sharing MamaBear through text, email, or social media. We want more parents and families to experience the benefit of the MamaBear, The Ultimate Parenting App™, so we made it simple for our users to spread the word.

Family Safety in 2016

As we start 2016, MamaBear would like to wish you and your family a happy and safe New Year. We hope you use these resources (along with the other helpful posts on our blog) and the MamaBear App to make 2016 the best and safest year yet.

To start this year on the right foot and protect your family while providing yourself peace of mind, get MamaBear for free on both iPhone and Android devices.

 

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Table Talk: Viral Video Shows The Reality of Online Stranger Danger

Coby Persin, a YouTube star with over 1.3 million subscribers, recently used his platform to remind both parents and children just how dangerous social media can be.

In the video, “The Dangers of Social Media (Child Predator Social Experiment),” Coby made a fake Facebook profile of a 15-year-old boy and friend requested three girls (12, 13, and 14 years old) with their parent’s permission.

He then messaged the girls, and after a few days, invited each one to meet him in real life.

The parents in the experiment believed their daughters wouldn’t agree to meet the fake 15-year-old Coby had created, but what they found surprised them. 

Each of the girls agreed to meet him in person. One at a park. One invited him to her house after her parents went to sleep. And one girl even snuck out of her house and jumped right into his car.

The parents were shocked and so were the girls. 

They didn’t see the boy they thought they met online. Instead, their parents were there waiting for them with Coby to remind them of the incredibly dangerous decision they just made.

Watch for yourself.

Then, share this powerful video with your kids to make sure they realize just how dangerous meeting online strangers can be.

After hearing about a news story out of Los Angeles, Coby released this video to show how easy it is for a pedophile to pick up an underage child using social media.

In that news story, a father awoke at 2 AM and saw that his teenage daughter had left the house. When he went to look for her, he saw a man guiding his daughter into a car.

This wasn’t an experiment. The man pretending to be a teenager was actually 27. And the danger was real.

How to Talk to Your Kids About Online Stranger Danger

As your kids get ready to go back to school, take this opportunity to remind your them how to protect themselves from online stranger danger.

  • Keep your profiles set as private.
  • Remember that people can easily pose as someone else online.
  • Online profile photos cannot prove someone’s identity.
  • If someone sends you inappropriate photos, tell an adult immediately.
  • Never give out personal information such as your address, phone number, or school name.
  • Don’t accept friend requests from people you don’t know — even if you have mutual friends.
  • If someone asks you to meet them in real life, tell an adult immediately.
  • NEVER meet a person you met online in real life.

Related Post: Dangers of Talking to Strangers Online

Many parents think their children would not agree to meet an online stranger in real life. But as the parents in this video found out, parents might be surprised by what they learn about their children’s social media habits.

The only way to be absolutely sure that your child is practicing safe social media habits is to see it for yourself. Parents need to be involved with their child’s online social world. With MamaBear, the Peace of Mind Parenting™ app, that is easy. 

The free app alerts parents when their child gets a new follower and posts a new message or photo. Parents can also set up notifications so they get special alerts when their child gets a private message or uses certain words or phrases (such as “meet in person”, etc.).

Available for both iPhones and Androids, this app is a must-have for parents looking to protect their children from the very real dangers of online strangers. 

 

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{Video} MamaBear CEO Discusses Social Media Safety for Kids on The Valley Girl Show

MamaBear CEO discusses social media safety for kids on The Valley Girl Show and how today's technology can help parents protect their kids.

Did you know 8,000,000 kids go missing each year? And many child predators who commit these crimes use kids’ social media accounts to find their victims. Today’s technology can help parents protect their kids against these and other harmful situations in many ways and give families more peace of mind everyday. MamaBear CEO, Suzanne Horton, sits down with Jesse Draper from the Valley Girl Show to talk about the MamaBear App and how the app and its “ultimate parenting tool” technology is connecting and protecting families and kids around the world. #JesseDraper #ValleyGirlShow

 

 

Previous Post

The students of Lone Hill Middle School are having to face the cruel side of social media. Their classmate received horrific death threats via Instagram.The Hurtful Side of Social Media: Horrific Threats Via Instagram for One Teen

 

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Snappening: What Snapchat’s Third Party Hack Means for Our Kids

Snappening: What Snapchat’s Third Party Hack Means for Our Kids | MamaBear App

In the wake of celebrity iCloud security breaches came another digital information privacy hack. Only this time it’s not celebrity information that was shared with strangers online; it was our children’s.

In mid-October, The Pirate Bay posted almost 98,000 files that included 13GB of photos and videos originally sent through the social media app Snapchat, according to Mashable.

Social media journalists called the leak the “Snappening,” and as parents, we need to be familiar with what this privacy leak means for our children.

What Information Was Released?

Over half of Snapchat’s users are between the ages of 13 and 17, which means the hacked content was generated primarily by children.

Snapchat’s users often send and receive private photos and videos via the social media app. They feel safe sharing private information through the app because it is designed to delete information after a certain amount of time or alert the user that the image has been saved (if another user captures the image via screenshot).

This application feature leads many teens and kids tend to think Snapchat is a secure place to share private information they normally wouldn’t share. That private information often includes racy, nude, or illicit images.

How Did the Information Get Out?

Snapchat’s servers were not hacked, and the images and videos were not taken out of their database. They were access through a third-party site called Snapsaved.com.

Snapsaved allowed users to save and access their snaps online, which goes against the main principle of Snapchat’s program. On Snapsaved, images and videos can be saved without the sender’s knowledge, also unlike Snapchat’s app.

The third party app has since taken down its site and released the following statement via their Facebook page, “As soon as we discovered the breach in our systems, we immediately deleted the entire website and the database associated with it. As far as we can tell, the breach has effected [sic] 500MB of images, and 0 personal information from the database.”

So What Does This Mean for Our Kids?

There have been mixed reports about whether or not the leaked content included illicit images of children. But the big message here is that this should be a warning.

Related: Helping Your Teen be Safe on Social Media

Kids need to understand that the information they share online is not as private as they think. Even when shared on sites that seem secure, information may still be leaked. Before they capture, send, or share an image, our kids need to consider the possibility that the image may be shared without their consent. They should always think before posting anything personal or reputation damaging.

Hackers are out to prove that they can access information that is off limits, and they don’t care if the information is from celebrities, ordinary people, or our children.

As parents, it is our job to teach our children about the danger of oversharing on social sites and to monitor the way our children are using those sites. Learn how MamaBear Family Safety App can you help connect with your kids on their social media accounts.