Have you noticed that your kids aren’t posting pictures and status updates on Facebook as much as they used to? Well, that’s because they’ve gravitated towards newer social media websites. To help you keep up, here are 4 social media sites that your kids are using.
Tumblr – According to RightMixMarketing, 61% of Tumblr’s users are teens, which beats out Facebook at 55%. Teens love Tumblr for its fast pace of sharing photos and quotes. To get started, go to http://www.tumblr.com/ and create an account. Once your account is created, search your Facebook friends list for people to follow. If your child still has their Facebook account active, you’ll find them and see what they’re sharing.
Twitter – Twitter is known for its 140 character-limit status updates called tweets. Twitter’s current teen population is 22%. When you sign up for Twitter, you’ll search for people by name. So even if your child’s username is not their real name, it will still appear in the results if they registered their account with their real name.
Instagram – Have you noticed pictures missing from your child’s Facebook? That’s because they’ve deleted them and uploaded them to Instagram. According to Instagram, more than 40 million photos are posted every day. Instagram’s main functions are done on its mobile app for iPhone and Android. Once you’ve started an Instagram account, you can search for people by looking up their name or importing your Facebook contacts.
Snapchat – Snapchat is a photo messaging app for iPhone and Android. Snapchat’s users consist of mainly children. Snapchat has a similar friend request model like Facebook where a user has to accept a request before you can see what they share. The other option is a public account which means anyone can send you a message. You can search your phone contacts to see if they match Snapchat accounts. The dangerous thing about Snapchat is that there is a time limit on photos that are sent. Once the time limit is up, the photo is hidden and hard to retrieve. Snapchat recently launched SnapKidz, a new feature of the app made for kids under 13. With SnapKidz children will be able to use Snapchat as a drawing app, or to caption photos they take – but they won’t be able to share those drawings or photos with others.
Source: Yes, You’ve Chased Your Kids Off Facebook — Here’s Where They Went
Create rules for their use of social media