Keeping an eye on your teens just got a lot easier!
Social media has been a vital part of our lives for over a decade now. We use it to stay connected with our friends and family, to share our thoughts and experiences, and to document our lives. But as we all know, social media can also be a tricky place. That's why Snap has launched its new Family Center, which will enable parents to monitor who their teens are interacting within the app. The Family Center will also keep the specifics of their conversations private, so parents can be sure that their children are safe. This is a great step by an important player of social media, and probably that other social media platforms will follow suit.
The goal of the Family Center, as stated in this introductory film, is to assist parents in understanding how their children are using the app without breaching privacy restrictions.
As explained by Snap:
“Family Center is designed to reflect the way that parents engage with their teens in the real world, where parents usually know who their teens are friends with and when they are hanging out – but don’t eavesdrop on their private conversations. In the coming weeks, we will add a new feature that will allow parents to easily view new friends their teens have added.”
Snap's Trust and Safety personnel will also be able to view any accounts that should be monitored directly from the app, rather than telling their child, which may help to keep them out of sight and away from unwanted attention. Parents must first create a Snapchat account, and then access the Family Center in the app to gain access to the platform.
A protection mechanism or a way to increase the user base?
Teens will be required to accept an invitation from their parents to join the Family Center dashboard, so there's complete transparency throughout the process.
(It's also possible that Snapchat is guarding the feature in order to boost its active user counts. It may be a method for Snapchat to increase active users because each parent who wishes to use the Family Center will need to create an account.)
It's a significant and necessary update – with the potential exception of reducing the app's appeal - but it comes with some level of risk for Snap as it may reduce appeal.
Snapchat's ephemeral function has made it a popular platform for far more risqué, contentious sharing in comparison to Facebook, where your entire family is watching. However, as parents begin participating, this might make it less appealing to the younger generation, thus reducing the value of the site to them.
There have also been multiple reports of how Snapchat is frequently utilized to send lewd messages and arrange hook-ups, which comes with its own degree of danger, while drug dealers are likewise reported to use it to organize meet-ups and sales.
Parents will undoubtedly want to learn more about it — but I can't see that Snap users would be so receptive to a nosy tool like this.
But regardless, there's a significant purpose to it, and this appears like a concession that Snap must make.
But it's possible that some of this activity will migrate to other platforms.
What are the other developments on the path?
In addition to this, Snap is developing additional tools for its Family Center:
“… including new content controls for parents and the ability for teens to notify their parents when they report an account or a piece of content to us. While we closely moderate and curate both our content and entertainment platforms, and don’t allow unvetted content to reach a large audience on Snapchat, we know each family has different views on what content is appropriate for their teens and want to give them the option to make those personal decisions.”
Overall, it appears to be a useful addition to Snap's security measures, which already include provisions to stop predatory messages between adults and minors and prevent kids from showing up in search results. On balance, it appears that the potential value of preserving user engagement outweighs the possible risk.
What do you think? Is this a good or bad move by Snapchat? Let us know in the comments!