Parents: Do You know your Teen's Social Media Platforms?

With all the apps out there that individualize communication preferences among teens, such as limiting "sharing," parents should still hold their breath. Face it, parents: times have changed. It's your duty to discuss these applications with your kids. And parents should also familiarize themselves with the so-called temporary apps.

• Temporary messages do not vanish forever.
• Are anonymous applications really anonymous?
• How temporary is "temporary"?

Kik Messenger

• Users can stay anonymous and conduct all sorts of communication.
• Has perks, like seeing if someone read your message.
• Has drawbacks, such as accidentally sending content to more people than the user intended.
• Easy to end up communicating with anonymous strangers.
• Involves ads disguised as communication.

Ask.fm

• Kids anonymously ask questions, e.g., "How do I conceal my eating disorder from my parents?" This question is benign compared to others on the site, though many users are innocent teens just hanging out.
• This kind of site, though, promotes cyberbullying.

Whisper

• Intended for adults, this app is where you post what's eating you.
• Some posts are uplifting and inspirational, while others are examples of human depravity.
• Replete with references to drugs, liquor and lewd behavior—mixed in with the innocent, often humorous content.

Yik Yak

• For users wanting to exchange texts and images to nearby users—hence having a unique appeal to teens.
• And it's anonymous. Users have made anonymous threats of violence via Yik Yak.
• Due to the bond of communicating with local users and the anonymity, this medium is steeped in nasty communication.
• Threats of violence will grab the attention of law enforcement who can turn "anonymous" into "identified."

Omegle

• This anonymous chat forum is full of really bad language, sexual content, violence, etc.
• The app's objective is to pair teens up with strangers (creepy!).
• Yes, assume that many users are adult men—and you know why.
• Primarily for sexual chat and not for teens, but teens use it.

Line

• Texting, sending videos, games, group chats and lots of other teeny features like thousands of emoticons.
• The Hidden Chat feature allows users to set a self-destruct time of two seconds to a week for their messages.
• For the most part it's an innocent teen hub, but can snare teens into paying for some of the features.

Burn Note

• Text messages are deleted after a set time period.
• Texts appear one word at a time.
• Burn Note can promote cyberbullying—for obvious reasons.

Snapchat

• Users put a time limit on imagery content before it's erased. So you can imagine what some of the imagery might be.
• And images aren't truly deleted, e.g., Snapsaved (unrelated to Snapchat) can dig up any Snapchatted image, or, the recipient can screenshot that nude image of your teen daughter—immortalizing it.

REPEAT: Face it, parents: times have changed. It's your duty to discuss these applications with your kids. And parents should also familiarize themselves with the so-called temporary apps.