Testimonials
Schools, organizations, and students rave about Internet Safety Presenter Jesse Weinberger
“Big Mama, you’re right, I’m going to cut my device time and eat more dirt. My mom needs to do everything you say – she has no idea what’s really going on.”
“I have been a technology professional for 20 years and I thought I had a good understanding of what it meant to be safe on the internet. Jesse opened my eyes. Whether you are a technology novice or a so called expert, you will learn something that you will start applying immediately. ”
“Please accept our sincere appreciation for your outstanding presentation. Your session was a huge hit with the SRO and DARE officers. It was informative, funny, and irreverent, all the right ingredients for law enforcement. Since I’m from New Jersey I could really relate to your comments about your parents who were not big believers in coddling their children. Thank you for speaking to our group and sharing your time and talent to instruct so many of our school law enforcement.”
“Thank you for what you do. We needed this information to be drilled into us from the start. We didn’t know what we were doing.”
“This is the best presentation I’ve heard all year. I’ve learned so much it’s amazing. Thank you! PS You are very entertaining too. 🙂 ”
“Big Mama, I want to thank you – that was disturbing AND awesome all at the same time.”
“On behalf of the administration and Ramaz community, heartfelt thanks for a powerful and substantive presentation. We’re sure you have heard this countless time, but your dynamic speaking style, total command of the latest information about internet safety, and no nonsense, direct approach is such a winning combination. Cameras are being taped, apps are being deleted, parents are organizing, and the community is buzzing – all testimony to how effective you were. We couldn’t have hoped for more.”
“I sincerely thank you for coming to our community and talking to not only our children this week, but to us last night. Your message was priceless. I’m beyond grateful for the impact I saw in my 6th grade quiet son. He came home and spontaneously blurted out “Mom, I do know you love me!” My son thinks you’re great, that you’re “real”, and that he could tell that you cared. He sat down and unloaded all the anxiety he was carrying (at the age of 11) over how many of his friends are hiding apps and behavior, and that he can’t sleep sometimes because of what they tell him. Now we talk “real” every day. Thank you for all of this. My husband and I thank you!”
“Thank you very much! You were very educational and funny!”
“Jesse Weinberger is a presenter that all parents should be required to see! She tells it like it is, in a way that will scare you… in a good way! You must, must, must hear her tips on internet safety. I’m on Facebook and on Instagram… oh boy I had no idea! Jesse’s no nonsense approach and interactive delivery make this sometimes touchy subject fun and fact filled.”
“Thank you Jesse Weinberger for a fantastic Internet Safety presentation to our 4th and 6th grade Girl Scouts! You tackled the important topic of internet safety without boring the girls with statistics and sounding like a “mom”. The girls were laughing and asking questions – no small feat! I really appreciate the time you took with our group and encourage all parents to get up to speed on this important safety issue! “
“I wanted to personally thank you for your leadership while working with Kenston stakeholders this year. I was reflecting on your impact after both presentations. One of the main reasons parents showed up on Tuesday is because students clearly respect who you are and followed the orders to go home and talk to mom/or dad on what they learned. Your presentation skills are spot on, especially how you win over every audience with an authentic approach but also how you connect by sharing personal and family experiences that are real. Thanks again for your time!”
Internet Safety & Digital Parenting : Your kids want you to say ‘no’ – to them AND to yourself. I have proof.
Oh good, you’re still here. Onward….
During the 2016-2017 school year, while traveling all over the US and presenting to students, parents, and teachers – I decided to add an optional question to the anonymous exit survey students complete at the end of my student presentation “Don’t Be A Sheep.”
Up until this time, students had been sharing the frequency, types, and circumstances around their own digital consumption and over-consumption. After analyzing hundreds of thousands of lines of student data, I wondered how students viewed their parent’s knowledge of both digital tools and digital risks.
One day, instigated by a student’s comment during a presentation (something like ‘my parents are way more addicted to their phones than I am’) I asked the students to add a 3rd and optional question to the survey by just jotting down a thought about what they felt their parents “needed to know” about digital usage and risks. Since the surveys are completely anonymous, I was hoping at least a few of them would feel free to open up, via this optional question.
The results have been overwhelming. Typically around 65% 1 of students answer the optional “parent education” question. This pool of responses has become the best single source of data which provides deep insight into what our children need us to know and do for them. And make no mistake, there is a significant amount of work which we need to do. In terms of the content of the responses, I’m consistently blown away by just how blind we are as parents and by how deeply these children need for us to take control. Their responses are heartfelt and blunt, intuitive and heartbreaking, perceptive and astoundingly mature.
One of the most remarkable aspects of the resulting data is its consistency. Similar to the self-reported data on sexting and cyberbullying2 (collected on the same anonymous exit survey) the resulting responses to the “parent education” question are eerily consistent3 across socio economics, geography, and school type (public, private, religious). Regardless of where they live, which kind of school they attend, or how much money their parents make, there is a single thread which binds them together – virtually ubiquitous device ownership among both children and parents.
Your children need you
The Q & A portion of my parent presentation encapsulates the parental fear and anxiety around this new thing called: digital parenting. What the hell does that even mean? Ideally, it means saying ‘no’ or at least saying ‘not so much.’ Digital parenting also includes asking children loads of questions and having the same conversations over and over again – in a never-ending loop.
But in this case (as in all things) when discussing successful implementation, the devil is in the details. This is the source of the anxiety I can feel from the stage during the Q & A. By the time I’ve taken them through the risks and reality, including the data related to their own children – the parents in the auditorium feel out of their depth. Which makes sense. They’ve just sat through my explaining the hundreds of ways this can go wrong with their child, in their home, and in their community.
But at least the parents in the seats now know what they don’t know. This is a starting point of sorts. I’m far more worried about all of the parents who could have attended the parent event and chose not to – they chose willful ignorance over education, they chose to believe that this conversation does not apply to them – that these issues will never darken their doorway. Bad move.
Different stages, similar questions
During the live Q&A, most of the questions I’m asked by parents center around fears or details related to having to now begin setting limits where they had never done so in the past. Some parents are nervous about the potentially adverse impact on their child’s social life while others focus more on respecting their child’s privacy. Other parents are just at that very moment facing the fact that their sweet babies (3rd to 6th graders) are engaging in outrageously risky digital behaviors and have no idea if they should have the conversations with their child – much less how to start that conversation.
My stock reply to most of these questions is:
And that’s all well and good when I’m standing on a stage. In a live event, I’ve built some credibility with the audience. They’ve viewed their student’s data – so they get it. It rings true to them, because they’ve seen the complete picture. But when I’m outside that weirdo artificial presentation setting – say having a conversation with friends over dinner, if I say “Your children want you to say ‘no’ to them” – the responses come in two basic flavors. Most will say “absolutely!” while some others will say “Oh, they do NOT, that makes no sense, why on earth would your kid want you to stop them from doing stuff they want to do?” Normally, I just let it go at this point. No one wants to hear about my data, and frankly neither do I at this moment. I’m off duty anyhow, and I can see the bar from where I’m sitting – and there are not enough bottles of Patron to get me through the rest of this evening.
By the way, I didn’t choose to hang out with the people in that second group – I just got stuck with them, say at a family dinner as a completely random example. Stressful relatives at horrifying and inescapable family gatherings aside, it seems counterintuitive that your children would specifically ask for limits. And yet this is precisely what is happening. Specifically and in detail.
That’s why we’re here right now – with me writing and you reading. My goal is to show you exactly what I’ve found, in as much detail as you’re willing to consume. If you want to check out the breakdown of the data source – I’ve included that all at the end of this post.
What the data shows
The analysis which follows came from student responses collected via the “parent education” question on the anonymous exit survey following my student presentation. I have aggregated the data from thirteen different schools, covering 4th to 12th grades in order to share the responses that students want you to hear.
The Completed Surveys4 sample of 6,862 was limited to just the 4,598 surveys where a student wrote a response to the parent education question: “If YOU could educate parents, what would you tell them? What do you think that they need to know?” This question is purposely open-ended to encourage students to share whatever happens to be top of mind for them related to the issue of digital consumption or risks.
For the purpose of this post, I only focused on the parent education responses where at least one of the following criteria was reflected in the content of the comment:
Criteria 1: The student’s response asks parents to either limit the child’s access to devices or asks parents for a higher or more consistent level of supervision of the student’s digital life.
Criteria 2: The student’s response reflects a critical view of their parent’s digital engagement, or implies addictive behavior.
By using just those two criteria, we ended up with a smaller sample of only Relevant Responses or 1,040 total responses out of the 4,598 total. Then those 1,040 responses were divided again into four total groups as shown below.
Criteria 1: Student asking parents for limits or supervision
Total responses: 460 of 1,040 (or 44% of Relevant Responses)
Total responses: 236
Total responses: 224
Criteria 2: Parent’s Digital Misuse
Total responses: 580 of 1,040 (or 56% of Relevant Responses)
Total responses: 526
Total responses: 54
It bears repeating that these responses were offered by students when prompted by the question: “If YOU could educate parents, what would you tell them? What do you think that they need to know?” They could have answered anything. Indeed, the excluded sample of the responses includes content related to: sexual predation, cyberbullying, porn consumption and addiction, the pervasiveness of sexting, specific app warnings, and too many other categories to list. Although many of these comments could have been construed as fitting into our criteria here – I’ve only included and counted the comments which plainly spoke to the criteria.
For example: The survey response from the 5th grade girl who wants her parents to know that she’s addicted to pornography could be interpreted as an SOS for parental engagement – but because her comment did not include a specific request for limits, supervision, or role model behavior – it was not included in this sample.
In fact, 23% of all of the students (in this particular sample) who answered the question – chose to use that space to ask parents for increased limits, increased supervision, better digital parenting and better role models – all based on zero prompting by me either during the presentation or on the printed exit survey.
Here’s what your children want you to know
The best way to tell you what your children really want is to let them do the talking. I’ve taken actual student responses and used them to answer typical parent questions and concerns. The student’s responses are transcribed verbatim in each category below.
Criteria 1A: Students asking their parents to say ‘no’ or deny them access to devices
Parent questions and student responses
(Note: the number and letter after each student response refer to that child’s grade and gender. For example “4B” is a response from a 4th grade boy.)
Doesn’t my child want me to say ‘yes’ to a smartphone?
Won’t my child perceive my ‘no’ as a lack of trust? My child is a “good kid”. Why would I say ‘no’?
Will I damage my relationship with my child if I say ‘no’? I don’t want my child not to like me.
Won’t my child feel left out if we say ‘no’ to social media?
Criteria 1B: Students asking for more or consistent parental supervision on devices
Parent questions and student responses
(Note: the number and letter after each student response refer to that child’s grade and gender. For example “4B” is a response from a 4th grade boy.)
I’m afraid that my child will resent my snooping and constant supervision. Besides, shouldn’t I respect my child’s privacy?
Aren’t my children are too young to have tough conversations about digital risks?
I have a “good kid” so why should I constantly supervise or snoop? I trust him.
I’ve set time limits for device usage and I have to fight with my kids all the time. I’m ready to give up.
If I checked my kid’s phone a few times and didn’t find anything bad, should I keep checking?
Criteria 2 A&B: Students accusing parents of: overusing or misusing devices and social media, specific references to their parent potentially having a device addiction
Criteria 1 focuses on children asking for increased digital engagement from their parents which also happens to be the main topic of most of the questions which I’m asked by parents. Parents, understandably, are asking questions about the whys and hows – basically the justification for the engagement (but I have a good kid) as well as the logistical concerns (I check every once in a while, that’s enough – right?).
But Criteria 2 is a whole different kettle of fish. Parents don’t arrive at my parent presentations intending on asking me questions about their own misuse of digital tools5. But I will say that I have seen (hundreds of times) a husband snap his head to stare down his wife (or vice versa) when I mention adult misuse of devices or social media. It makes me laugh, every time – and I call them out, every time.
Parents aren’t asking me questions about their own misuse because if they objectively saw it as misuse (I’m hoping), they would act to change it. You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge right? I’m perfectly fine with my Gummy Bears addiction – and no, I don’t see anything weird about stocking five extra bags in the pantry, thank you very much.
Like any addiction or at least seemingly unstoppable repeated pattern of behavior, parents who misuse their own devices or social media seem to have a lack of self-awareness of both how obvious the parent’s misuse is to their children AND how the parent’s misuse could be impacting their children and the health of the family overall.
Since we don’t have parent questions for this topic – we’ll work backward. Starting with the student responses – here are the three most common categories of student responses related to parental misuse of devices and/or social media.
When you over-share or over-engage, you might accidentally be increasing your family’s exposure to victimization.
By far this is your child’s biggest complaint about your social media and device use. We expect our children to be good stewards of their online reputation. We tell them to be careful what they post and where they post – that content never goes away – BLAH BLAH and BLAH. Yet there you are posting photo after photo of your child without asking if it’s okay with her. If we want our children to respect the power of the content they create, then you should respect them enough to ask them for permission before you post about them. Maybe she doesn’t want the universe to know that little fun fact that you just blasted all over Facebook. Your kids HATE that you do this. It’s a big deal for them. And I agree. So stop.
Moreover, when you post family photos, check-in at a restaurant or vacation spot, post where you are “gonna-be” in the future, and generally projectile vomit your day-to-day, you vastly increase your family’s risk of being victimized.
Or at a minimum – your constant stream of bad-lighting-is-that-pasta-or-cheesecake-no-it’s-a-dislocated-toe photos vastly increase your risk of looking like an idiot. Mark Twain said, “It’s better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt.”
Your child sees how you engage with devices and social media and will likely imitate your behavior (addictive behaviors).
If your child sees you choose a screen over verbal and real-life engagement – they will do likewise. As the parent, you are (presumably) the one who makes the rules, and if you don’t make your family the first priority when you’re physically together then why on earth should your tween daughter behave better than you do?
If your child sees you prioritize an email over family/dinner time – they will do likewise. Dinner doesn’t take all that long – probably less than 45 minutes. If your job requires you to engage in work-related activity every waking moment, perhaps you need to re-evaluate. Don’t use work as an excuse – you’re not fooling anyone, certainly not your children.
PS: I recognize that children never imitate the good things we do – isn’t that parenting in its essence? But take heart, someday that little angel making you utterly bonkers, will have a child of his own and then you will be able to take your revenge. Smugly.
You might accidentally be modeling behavior which encourages your child to externalize their sense of self-worth.
Yes, I’m talking to you if you’re scrolling through Facebook while “watching” your child in the bathtub, or if that cute pic you took at the playground just must be posted this second, or if posting is a natural extension of almost any real-world experience: watching a new tv show, going out to dinner, suffering a disappointment, getting stuck in a traffic jam, meeting up with friends. Every experience must be cataloged, reported, and posted. Then after the posting comes the checking – how many liked, who were they, what did they say – why did she say THAT. Wash.Rinse.Repeat.
Essentially, how many friends/likes/comments becomes more important than your own sense of self-worth. Or in another way: nothing is real, nothing has substance, nothing matters until it has been posted and its value weighed, measured, and quantified by people outside of yourself. And possibly the worst part is when your children see it. They might not be able to articulate it – but they feel it.
Oh, and your kids asked me to tell you to stop taking selfies – and if you’re over 40 years old, I kind of also want you to stop. It’s not cute anymore.
Criteria 2 A&B: Student Responses to Parental Digital Misuse
(Note: the number and letter after each student response refer to that child’s grade and gender. For example “4B” is a response from a 4th grade boy.)
When you over-share or over-engage, you might accidentally be increasing your family’s exposure to victimization.
Student Responses:
(NOTE: this is by far the most popular comment in this section – across all grades, all schools, ever.)
Your child sees how you engage with devices and social media and will likely imitate your behavior (ie addictive behaviors).
Student Responses:
You might accidentally be modeling behavior which encourages your child to externalize their sense of self-worth.
Student Responses:
Bottom Line
If you made it this far, congratulations – you might be the only one. And where are we exactly…what have we learned? Precisely what I offered in the two line summary at the beginning, but hopefully with more depth:
Easy to comprehend, far more difficult to implement. And I get that. Just hear one last thing – your children want to get off this insane ride. They want you to be the grown-up and make it stop. Even if all signs point to the contrary, they need you and they want you to stop them.
Remember #BeFierceBeUnafraid
Data Source
The data used in this post was gathered from a cross-section of accumulated student surveys from 2016 to the present. At the end of every student presentation, I ask students to complete a very short anonymous exit survey on paper (paper! imagine that) which contains three questions. The data used here comes exclusively from the third and optional question: “If YOU could educate parents, what would you tell them? What do you think that they need to know?” Typically around 64% to 70% of students offer some response to this optional survey question.
The data used for this post purposely reflects a variety of grades, school types, school locations, and income levels.
Data sample includes:
* Based on % of students who qualify for the free and reduced lunch program
ALL COMPLETED SURVEYS: 6,862
Total completed surveys in the resulting sample: 6,862 surveys
ALL PARENT EDUCATION RESPONSES: 4,598
Total surveys which included a response to the “parent education” optional question: 4,598 surveys (or 67% of the completed surveys)
ALL RELEVANT RESPONSES: 1,040
Total responses from the 4,598 sample which are relevant to the two criteria related to this post: 1,040 relevant responses (or 23% of all parent education responses).
MEN: Laptop heat might be impacting, well, your heat (spoiler: sperm hate high temperatures)
If you’re under 60 years old, chances are that you use your laptop or tablet in bed or on a couch resting on your lap – hence the “lap” in laptop. You may even have noticed a humming or whirring sound coming from your laptop as its internal fan attempts to cool down the device. High temperatures and electronic devices don’t mix. If you’ve ever visited the server room at your company (the place where all of the computer servers are kept) you’ll wish you had brought a parka. In order to protect the components, server rooms are kept exceedingly cold – remember that the next time you need to keep 40 pounds of pastrami fresh.
But if you’re a man you should be monitoring more than just the temperature of your devices (or your pastrami). Conventional medical wisdom has long recommended that men keeping their undercarriage as cool as possible by staying away from hot tubs and super tight clothing. However, as the portability and constant use of electronic devices rise, our daily habits also change. Constantly using electronic devices expands the length of time and places the devices are used.
Several studies have connected extended time of increased lap and groin temperature with an increase in scrotal temperature – which seems to lead to the production of abnormally shaped sperm. These new “warmer” sperm are less effective in penetrating the egg, diminishing fertility.
BOTTOM LINE: Gentlemen (of all ages) use a lap desk of some sort at all times. Parents of boys – here’s to ONE MORE THING to worry about…the future grandchildren you don’t even want to think about yet.
READ THE STUDY HERE: Hagai Levine, Niels Jørgensen, Anderson Martino-Andrade, Jaime Mendiola, Dan Weksler-Derri, Irina Mindlis, Rachel Pinotti, Shanna H. Swan; Temporal trends in sperm count: a systematic review and meta-regression analysis, Human Reproduction Update, https://doi.org/10.1093/humupd/dmx022
Back to School – Digital Parenting Tips
If “Ecstatic Anticipation” were a perfume, it would be made up of equal parts: autumn leaves and school bus exhaust. Parents everywhere would wistfully dab a bit behind each ear in mid-July as their children stared aimlessly at a glowing screen. Despite our best intentions, in the absence of the structure of a school day, the summer months can be filled with high rates of digital device use.
Why less is better
Last year I presented to over 70,000 students and gathered millions of lines of self-reported student data. Here’s what I’ve found consistently (regardless of socio economics, geography, or school type):
There is no question that children who have unfettered, unsupervised access to web-enabled devices are multiplying their risk of being a victim and/or becoming a perpetrator of cyberbullying, sexting, sexual predation, and human sex trafficking – not to mention the absurd amount of pornography which is being consumed by extremely young children. The single thread which binds all of these risks together is access. Every single one of these risks requires access to the device in order to exist. Simply speaking: minimizing your child’s access minimizes their risk.
Changing any single habit or behavior can be tough – changing several can seem almost impossible. However, if you think just in terms of time and location, it will be far easier to cultivate and enforce healthier digital behaviors.
Time-based restrictions
No smartphones under 14 years old. In this case, the best place to begin is to not begin at all. A child under 14 years old has zero justification for owning a smartphone. (If there is a divorce situation – buy your child a flip phone.) Wherever you begin, your child will expect to expand on that starting point. If you bought an iPod Touch for your 8-year-old, the expectation to “upgrade” to a phone will come earlier rather than if the iPod Touch was gifted when the child turned 12 years old instead.
One-hour non-academic time per day. From that first day of school, the biggest difference in your child’s digital behavior comes from the reduced amount of time he has available to spend on devices. There are several studies suggesting that anything more than one hour of non-academic screen time per day increases your child’s digital risks. This solution also supports the idea of being mindful via proactive portion control versus reactively becoming a victim to the consequences.
Not on a school night. A great solution, especially for students in 6th grade and younger – no gaming or device use on school nights (Monday through Thursday). This is my favorite time-based solution mostly because it’s simple, super easy to enforce, travels easily with your child, and has fantastic outcomes.
Not before bed. Regardless of the day of the week or the person (this means you too dad) no one in your home should be using their phone, tablet, or laptop less than one hour before bedtime. The blue light waves given off by a backlit screen (versus a television) confuse your brain’s circadian rhythms into thinking it’s morning and it’s time to wake up. Additionally, this blue light can make a negative impact on the neural messages sent to your internal organs. If you look at your phone right before bed and you can’t sleep – that could be why.
Not after mom and dad have gone to bed. There comes a natural tipping point when children stay awake later than their parents. It’s very hard to keep an eye on what’s going on when, well, your eyes are closed. The easiest solution is to move the wifi/router into or near your bedroom and plug it into an outlet which has a timer. This way the power gets automatically shut off at X o’clock each night. The low tech solution? Yank the power cord out of the router as you head off to bed.
Location based restrictions
Not in the dead zone. Create dead zones for technology in your home – these are specific locations where devices are forbidden. Here are a few suggestions: all cell phones (including mom’s and dad’s) can travel through the kitchen but can never stop at the dinner table….no devices should ever be sitting or charging on a nightstand….there should be zero posting, texting, or web surfing during a family outing – especially while eating, etc.
Create a charging station. At X o’clock every evening all cell phones should be placed in a predetermined charging location. This includes your child’s friend’s phones if they’re sleeping at your home. Be sure to make it clear to their parents that this rule is non-negotiable.
Change the view. Make your children play outside! Studies show extended lengths of time engaged in immersive tech usage negatively impacts impulse control and anxiety. Conversely physical exertion and exercise increase blood flow to the brain which improves impulse control and lessens anxiety.
As parents, we’re expected to be infallible and omniscient – a tough combination. Mistakes and missed opportunities are inevitable. It happens to all of us. Going back to school in the fall is a natural time to re-engage. It might be hard, but don’t lose heart. You can do this. #BeFierceBeUnafraid.
Where we’ve been and what’s coming next
The beginning of the school year is an obvious time to reinforce established family rules and possibly implement new ones as a response to your children growing older.
So here’s my contribution to both of those efforts: taking stock of where we’ve been and adding new educational opportunities.
How we got here
At the end of the 2016-2017 school year, I felt the need to reassess where this is all headed. I had successfully presented to well over 70k audience participants (students, parents, educators, and law enforcement), I had gathered hundreds of thousands of rows of anonymized student data and feedback, and (perhaps most importantly) I had been a live witness to hundreds of students reporting their experiences with child exploitation, sexual predation, porn addiction, sexting (tons), and even sex trafficking.
Over the past few years, I have become friendly with law enforcement personnel who have acted as a sounding board as well as a much-needed voice of reason (I tend to come with child protection ideas involving an aluminum baseball bat ala Hollis Queens). I called a detective friend of mine and said to her “I feel like the building is burning and I’m the only one who can see it, do you ever feel that way?” She said “Everyday”, which made me feel better and worse. Better because I’m clearly not the only one. And worse because the building is in fact burning, and not enough people can see it.
My end-of-year reassessment then took a new tack – How do I share this message with the highest number of people without spending 365 days on the road, having my family hate me, and end up shaving my head, moving to a Tibetan ashram and living out the rest of my days in silent meditation? (I’ll be honest, that last bit still sounds AWESOME.)
So I’ve come up with a list of goals for moving forward and I’d like to share them with you here:
Where we’re headed
WEBSITE
Beginning now, with this post, the blog on my website is undergoing a complete re-birth (or actually just birth since the first iteration wasn’t particularly consistent). Because of Google search algorithms and reasons way TOO tedious and nerdy to explain (trust me you won’t care) -I will be posting a significant amount of my content on the website as blog posts. But don’t worry I will be cross-promoting those pieces on my Facebook page and in the twice-monthly emails – so you won’t miss anything.
BOOKS
#1 Last May I was able to complete and publish the 2nd edition of my book The Boogeyman Exists; And He’s in Your Child’s Back Pocket. (Thank you to all of the parents who waited so patiently after the publish date was pushed back several times.)
Well, there you have it. That’s where we’ve been, and where we’re headed. The ultimate goal is to reach as many parents and educators as humanly possible. If there’s a feature or a topic you’d like to see covered, please don’t hesitate to let me know.
Internet Safety Tips for Children & Teens: Review on ooVoo and Flinch App – Um yeah, NO
Very often, I get questions from fans which I attempt to answer as quickly as they arrive.
Photo Credit: ooVoo.com
One of the page followers asked for more information on ooVoo…what follows is my response to Marie (thanks Marie for the great question). In the meantime, there’s a new arrival in the cootie community and it’s called Flinch (that review follows below after ooVoo).
Internet Safety Tips for Children & Teens: Big Mama Reviews: ooVoo
ooVoo is essentially a benign videoconferencing app/website. Think: Skype or Facetime. On its own merits there is nothing egregious here. HOWEVER: online gamers have made this their favorite way to see and communicate with each other live while they game. It’s popular among Minecrafters, etc.
Recently, ooVoo has added some other features in addition to the videoconferencing (see below).
What you need to know about ooVoo
First an ooVoo story – are you sitting down?
OGeek fans who have seen my live presentation have heard this story. …
I was presenting to a large audience in NE Ohio, and this mom (to her credit) raised her hand and offered the following story….mom told us how every single day her son would rush off the school bus and snap on the tablet in order to play Minecraft. On this particular day mom got to the tablet before the son did, in order to look up a recipe for dinner. When she turned on the tablet she saw a live and naked man on the screen via ooVoo. This sexual predator was waiting for her son to get home, and she accidentally intercepted the communication.
Bottom line on ooVoo
The Barf Thickens.
Internet Safety Tips for Children & Teens: Big Mama Reviews: Flinch Game App
Photo Credit: Flinch Game: http://makemeflinch.com
If you’ve read the review above on ooVoo you can probably see why the app/website is a terrible idea for children. But do you know what would be even WORSE? If there were a game based on the ooVoo platform where users can open up a live stream with each other and play a live “game”, competing for example to see who cracks a smile first. Sounds cute. It’s not….and it’s called Flinch
Basically this is the equivalent of a staring contest with friends or strangers. Originally the app was created to be used for adults in a business setting due to its facial recognition. Six million individual games are played every single day and it’s growing by 98k users every single week. The software automatically determines the winner. (yeah so, creepy).
The big issue is that you are LIVE streaming with people you might know, and people you might NOT know. Sound familiar? The option to play with a friend, or randomized play is open to the user. You can’t black list or white list.
The app description in iTunes specifically states that you have to be at least 17 years old to download the app, which of course is being completely ignored by the legion of 11-15 year old’s using the app.
In the end though, Flinch is meant to be a game where you earn tokens in order to purchase in-game distractions so that you can win even more tokens. So we can reward these children (who are not meant to be playing the game in the first place) with points, and tokens, and higher rank. Zing-Pow-BARF
The rest is obvious:
Again, just to be clear – it’s not the app developers fault that there are sexual predators in the world who are going to jump all over this, and already have.
Here’s a review that was posted by a Flinch user on the iTunes page for the Flinch App
Bottom line review on Flinch Game: Parents: your children under 17 years old should NOT be using Flinch, per the app developers guidelines. This is a big NO.
Did you learn something? **Read. Learn. Share.**
— “Big Mama”
Snapchat’s hypocrisy: Snapchat is clearly used for sexting, cyberbullying, and general ick, stop pretending like it isn’t
Internet Safety and Parents
I have said and will ALWAYS say that it is our job as parents to: monitor, limit, and consequence the behavior of our children – online or offline. However – this level of hypocrisy just cracks me up….
Snapchat launched a “Snapchat Safety Center” website which is completely covered in adorable cartoon characters just to add to the **barf** of making this app seem innocuous and child safe. Which it isn’t – not by a mile.
Don’t believe me? Take a look at the screenshot I took of Snapchat’s “safety” website below-
Credit: Snapchat Safety Center http://www.snapchat.com/safety
Does this cartoon image seem like:
That would be a resounding NO on both counts.
Everyone knows that Snapchat has a child pornography problem.
Snapchat knows it, law enforcement knows it, prosecutors and judges know it, your kids know it, and sexual predators know it – (but the predators LOVE it). You know who doesn’t know it? Parents.
In February 2015 Snapchat kicked off this “safety” campaign via their “Snapchat Safety Center“.
Is Snapchat hoping that the kids TAKING sexy photos of themselves will read through the “community guidelines” and discover that ‘oh yeah, I shouldn’t take a picture of my junk and send it to 85 of my friends?’ OR is it intended for the parents of said child, to read through the community guidelines (prefaced by a billion cartoon characters) to realize that ‘oh yeah, my tween/teen has NO BUSINESS using this app?’ The same can be said for the other verboten behaviors listed on their site: cyberbullying, self-harm, threats of physical harm, etc.
Get serious Snapchat, you’re not fooling anyone
Yes, it’s MY job as a parent to know precisely what my child is doing online. Yes, it’s my job to make sure that my child is safe and does not accidentally court danger.
But Snapchat, seriously – let’s not pretend that your app ISN’T what it clearly IS. Why does one require an app where an image or message supposedly auto-combusts? What part of our lives requires a self-destruct button for communications? And please don’t give me that feeble, pathetic excuse about users sending each other “goofy” photos.
Snapchat’s single and only raison d’être is to send risque, cruel, and inappropriate photos/communications which supposedly “self-destruct” (except when they don’t).
I would prefer that Snapchat would come out and say: “Look, we all know what this app is meant for. Parents, do us a favor and keep your kids 10 miles away from our app, we don’t want your children here, and we don’t want anyone to get hurt.” Wouldn’t that be preferable than this pathetic display of dissembling?
THE BEST PART: Snapchat can’t even guarantee the single thing it’s meant to do – completely delete photos
Just to take the stupid one step further. Snapchat cannot in any single way guarantee that photos will disappear completely. I can give you about 4 different ways (just off the top of my head) that I can keep every single ‘snap’ sent to me.
Here’s what Snapchat’s so-called “safety center” has to say about their own nondestructable snaps
…and from Snapchat’s own marketing language in their app-store description
Yes, and this doesn’t even include the 3rd party apps which can ALSO be downloaded (and kids know to use) which automatically save and capture every snap they receive without alerting the sender. DUH
PARENTS: Bottom line
Children under 13 are forbidden by US Federal regulation (COPPA) from having ANY social media accounts. This includes Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and any/all others. You’re children under 13 have NO BUSINESS USING SOCIAL MEDIA. You will find me resolute in this. I don’t care what the circumstances are – I don’t care if Aunt Helga (with the wonky eye and the hump) can ONLY communicate with your kids via Facebook. The answer is no.
Despite the massive number of adorable cartoons on their site, children of any age should not be using Snapchat. Maybe I’m just being a bit difficult, but using an app whose premise is hiding behavior just seems wrong to me in principle. Is this what we’re teaching our children? Do something that you can’t regret later because an app will prevent consequences? How about we just think ahead and don’t do the thing we shouldn’t have done in the first place???? (((sigh))))
This just bugs me from a consumers-are-sheep perspective….if a company cannot guarantee that their entire reason for existing, well EXISTS, then how stupid are we as a consumer society? Why not just text the photos? That’s like watching the Kardashian’s on television and NOT expecting to lose a few thousand brain cells in the transaction. What did you think was going to happen?
VIDEO: Internet Safety Tips for Parents- Make sure your kids are NOT using any of these apps