Parents Be Aware: What’s the TOP 5 Sexting Apps?

As the world has switched to online platforms for every usage, many different websites and applications are designed for children to help them with their routine tasks, from preparing presentations to submitting homework.

You’ll find a vast bundle of apps being downloaded on your child’s phone; thus, it has become difficult to separate useful apps from the ones that are inappropriate for them. These problematic apps have become the main mediums for teens to exchange explicit images and videos known as sexting.

We’ll be discussing some popular sexting apps to help parents be more aware!

Top 1: Snapchat

When it comes to popular sexting apps, Snapchat stands on the top of the list. Snapchat has gained almost all of its popularity through teenagers having around 293 million active users. The main reason for such excessive usage is safety assurance regarding media and identity.

Snapchat has offered a quick and easy way of capturing, captioning, and sending random photos and videos worldwide. However, the most interesting part of this application is that the photo or video you have sent to your friends automatically disappears within 10 seconds after you’re going to open it.

From Streaks to Memories and Snaps to Bitmojis, many different features have grabbed teens’ attention towards this app. With its wide array of colorful, comical, and sometimes hilarious filters, Snapchat is an enjoyable app to use.

However, without proper parental control, children can be exposed to harmful drawbacks of the app.

Reason for Monitoring

Being the number one sexting app online, Snapchat has given false security assurance to teens. They claim to keep your private media completely safe, fooling children to use the auto-disappearing feature to exchange inappropriate photos.

But as adults, we know nothing stored or sent through the internet is ever private or vanishes. You can retrieve the sent pictures and even take a snapshot before it disappears. Snapchat sexting has resulted in many cases of cyberbullying and blackmailing worldwide.

Click to learn more about teen sexting on snapchat.

Top 2 Tinder

Tinder is designed to create a fun environment for connecting people based on their likes, dislikes, particularly whatever they decide to show you. It is simple to use and well-suited if you have just moved to the town and looking to meet new people.

The application is meant for people within the age bracket of 18 to 30, looking for a casual relationship or just a fling. If you’re one of those, then even the paid features offered by the application are worth it for you. But if you are someone looking for a serious relationship, you need to get out of that app.

Once you sign in, you’ll be given multiple profile choices, which you can accept by swiping right and rejecting by swiping left. If the other person swipes right on you, you both match and can talk or meet.

With just a swipe, all your details are sent to some unknown person that can use your image and identity for many inappropriate reasons.

Reasons for Monitoring

Initially, Tinder isn’t designed for children as it has been rated M for mature. You’ll find an age limit of 18 while downloading it. Moreover, it doesn’t have a very appropriate reputation among the other dating applications.

Many people with fake accounts catfish users to scam them for money, explicit images, or enjoyment throughout the app. So, if you don’t want a child to have a couple of nudes in their chat, you should delete the app immediately.

Top 3: Kik

Kik is quite a popular messenger designed to be a completely free alternative to texting, helping users send texts, videos, and images through WiFi. Around 180 million users actively use this application every day, being a dedicated social platform meant for texting.

Kik has many different features, including video editing, sketching, bot searching, and code scanning among groups. Due to its appropriate usage, there isn’t any age restriction for using this application. However, it is quite easy to connect with random strangers through this application, making it threatening for children.

Moreover, this application encourages its users to carry out different commercial branding with other users increasing the chance of scams. It has elevated your ordinary texting service to an entire business management platform.

Reasons for Monitoring

Kik works authentically for sending and receiving short message services taking over wireless providers. However, it also helps most predators trap children into sexting. There aren’t any controls over language or the content you’re exchanging.

Another risky aspect of this application is that children meet strangers without having any medium of authentication. Thus, they can be curious to meet these strangers in person, which can take your child towards some uneventful circumstances.

Top 4: FaceBook

Facebook is one of the most popular social media networks that connect billions of users under a single platform. As a result, the application introduces many features with every update, from selling to playing games.

The primary purpose of Facebook was to share your thoughts, images, videos and reconnect with your old and existing friends online. Now, it has evolved to submerge many business factors, becoming a marketplace for selling different types of products.

As you sign in to your account, you’ll be flooded with random people who want to be your friend and many businesses ready to sell their products!

Reasons for Monitoring

There are many reasons behind monitoring this application when your children use it. First, they can either be approached by pedophiles or sexual predators for sexting. There are many cases of harassment reported when strangers randomly send nudes through Facebook messenger. Along with that, your child may be bullied in comments to share your opinion on specific topics.

Top 5: Instagram

Instagram is also a popular social media application widely used by celebrities all around the world. As many celebrities use Instagram to share their lives, most teens are also associated with the applications to know all about it.

Insta claims to be a media-sharing application, letting its users share photos and videos. You can also like and comment on the posts shared by other people, search for your desired content and message your friends privately. You can use this social platform from any browser or download it from the App Store.

As it is a media-sharing application, it focuses on editing and professionally revamping the media. You’ll be given a proper editor for this purpose where you can adjust brightness, saturation, contrast, fade, warmth, and whatnot. You can also choose from various filters to make your photos mesmerizing.

Reasons for Monitoring

Although visibly there isn’t any flaw with the mechanics of Instagram, which can be labeled as inappropriate for children, they are still exposed to a filtered and edited world that can harm their self-confidence. Additionally, as children are exposed to strangers, they’re also under the threat of bullying and harassment.

How to Monitor Sexting Apps to Protect Kids’ Cyber Life?

With this widely spreading phenomenon of sexting, most parents need to monitor their children’s activities on all popular applications. In addition, you should keep a thorough eye on them to avoid any harassment or scamming that can lead them to dangerous situations.

One of the best ways of tracking your child’s social activity is through FamiSafe Wondershare. It is an online tool with many valuable features that can help parents limit their children’s usage. No matter which device you or your child have, FamiSafe works the best on all Android and iOS devices.

It is entirely safe to use, securing all your data, media, and contacts. The features offered by FamiSafe Wondershare include geofencing, web filtering, screen limitations, and more.

Why Monitoring is Necessary?

It is necessary to monitor your children’s activity, even if it can be regarded as a privacy invasion, as you intend to protect them. The purpose isn’t to degrade their personality or to doubt their actions but only to inform them that being involved in such activities isn’t appropriate.

A few reasons why monitoring is important for your children are as follows:

• Sexting

The primary purpose of this monitoring is to make sure that they aren’t involved in sexting. You’ll have an idea by looking at the target user’s chats and the images exchanged between their friends.

• Explicit Images

You can also look through the gallery to find explicit images of unknown people, which can be a sign of them straying away.

• Cyberbullying

As you are tracking your children’s social media accounts, you’ll know if they’re being bullied or scammed by people online.

• Inappropriate Content

Just with casual monitoring, you can also find the presence of any inappropriate content either on YouTube or from some explicit sites on their smartphone.

Learn more about What parents can do about teen sexting.

Play this video and study in detail the issues with sexting.

FAQs

Q1. Can explicit images or messages on sexting apps be leaked?

Yes, the person with whom you have shared the pictures can spread them among various people. Moreover, if their or your’s account gets hacked, then there is a possibility that the culprit can access the sexting messages and leak them.

Q2. How can I secure messages on sexting apps?

You can use Snapchat to sexting as chats and images vanish as soon as the other user views them. In addition, some social apps offer to encrypt the texts. So, you can enable the feature to protect your privacy.

Joanne Croft

staff Editor