I have good news and terrible news for ALL THE PARENTS WHO WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT WHO YOUR KIDS ARE TALKING TO ON THEIR SMARTPHONES. The good news is that a well-known social networking app recently changed its policies to provide parents and guardians of 13 to 17-year-olds access to more information on the youngsters they are responsible for. You must download Snapchat, which is horrible news.
The new family center on Snapchat allows you to see your child’s buddy list, who they are messaging, and report any possible abuse after you’ve set it up and connected your account with theirs. You are not permitted to read the text of the family center’s communications. The new tool gives you a general idea of when your adolescent last sent a message, but it doesn’t give a precise timestamp.
The family center is a critical safety feature that could attract parents who are unfamiliar with Snapchat, even though it isn’t as glamorous as the company’s recently scrapped flying selfie camera. Check out writer Cyd Harrell’s piece for further advice on how to strike a balance between monitoring your children for safety and unintentionally creating a state of domestic surveillance.
Related: Facebook is developing its own Snapchat’s Bitmoji
How to Use Snapchat’s Family Center
On utilize the family center, you must download Snapchat to your smartphone, which is true. Open the Snapchat app once it has been downloaded, and then tap Sign Up if you don’t already have an account. The first step in signing up is a request to access your smartphone’s contact list (which you can allow or decline). After that, enter your complete name and choose Sign Up & Accept. Tap Continue after entering your birthdate.
On the following screen, Snapchat will generate a username for you. If you want to change your username, choose Change my username; otherwise, touch Continue once more. To complete the Snapchat sign-up procedure, provide your phone number or email address and a personalized password. If you wish to postpone establishing a connection with your friends and creating a Bitmoji avatar, tap the Skip button in the upper right corner.
You have a Snapchat account now. By sharing Snap codes or usernames, add your youngster as a common buddy. Before you may add your child to the family center, you must connect as mutuals. Find your profile symbol in the top left corner of the app’s main screen and touch on it when you’re ready to set up the family center. Then click the gear icon in the upper right corner and scroll down until you find the Privacy Controls area.
The new family center control panel may be found here. Since you and your adolescent are already friends on Snapchat, you can touch on their name and choose Send Invitation to give them the option to sign up as a family member. The family member invitation is then delivered via Snapchat as a direct message along with a sign-up link.
As soon as the family center is active, keep in mind that you will have live access to a list of your teen’s Snapchat friends and the most recent messages they have sent to other users. No saved images or the child’s conversation patterns with other users will be accessible to you. Users who are 18 or older are not eligible for monitoring since the function is intended to add an additional degree of protection and privacy for Snapchat’s younger users.
Read: Snapchat lens that reacts to sound will roll out in coming weeks
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