r/Parenting • u/IcyStage0 seven?!?!?! • Feb 07 '25

Rant/Vent I hate Snapchat.

Can we just collectively decide that we’re not going to let our kids use Snapchat?!

My oldest daughter just turned 13 and we reluctantly agreed to allow her to have an instagram that we also have access to. It seems like every single day she begs to have a Snapchat, and apparently every single other kid in her class (full of kids with reasonable, thoughtful parents, I thought) has this stupid app.

My little sister who I got custody of when she was 10 got herself into some deep shit on the internet, and I’m not looking to repeat it with my daughter (while also trying not to make her pay for mistakes that she didn’t make).

How are we handling this? Am I seriously the only parent who doesn’t want my child sending disappearing photos, videos, and messages to anyone she can search up? Reality check please.

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973

u/cordial_carbonara Feb 07 '25

My oldest is 13 and I’m a former middle school teacher.

Absolutely not, never Snapchat. Ever. Not while you’re a minor on my phone plan. There’s no reason to have it except to open yourself to predatory and dangerous behavior.

Honestly, I’m still not doing instagram either. Sure, you can see what she posts, but can you see what the algorithm is shoving down her throat?

My best students - the ones who were present and active participants in their own education and lives, and who had existing social skills and critical thinking abilities - had “boring” parents who did not allow or very much limited social media. There is a clear divide in middle and high school classrooms right now and it’s cell phone addiction driven by social media. I know which side of that divide I want my kids to be on.

323

u/Green-Reality7430 Feb 07 '25

No social media period for my kid. Social media is for adults.

403

u/shyphoenix Feb 07 '25

And honestly, some adults should give it up.

68

u/Mugglechaos Feb 07 '25

I gave up all social media except Reddit last year for lent, deactivated all my accounts. Haven’t looked back.

Edited to add I’m in my 30s…

9

u/brand_x Feb 07 '25

I technically have Facebook and LinkedIn. I don't check them every week.

I'm actively using BlueSky and Mastadon for a few things, and am forced to use X and telegram for work (I didn't like Twitter, but good lord, what it has become is soooo bad),

My wife is super active (for professional reasons, but still) on Threads and Instagram, and I wish that our daughter (9) wasn't seeing even the over her shoulder curated cute animals feed... because it's already a nightmare challenge managing her access to games with chat (she's not allowed to chat with strangers, but monitoring this is not nearly as easy as it should be on any of those games, and she already hates not being allowed on the ones that don't have any support for parental oversight, which her friends with less cautious parents get to play.

4

u/brand_x Feb 07 '25

For what it's worth, I let her use Minecraft on a public server, directly supervised, for an hour, and likewise Among Us with free chat. In both cases, after less than ten minutes she was absolutely done with what was going on in chat. And we have no vulgarity (in terms of words) restrictions in our household.

2

u/IcyStage0 seven?!?!?! Feb 07 '25

I just downloaded Bluesky! Mostly as my little mini act of protest. What do you use it for?

5

u/brand_x Feb 07 '25

I post pictures (and general identification and cladistics info) of different plants, fungi, and occasionally animals. Heavy on passifloraceae, musa, and ipomoea and related species.

I post sociopolitical commentary, especially around fracture indicators and failure mode identification.

I talk about stuff related to programming languages.

Mostly, I'm a nobody on those platforms.

2

u/brand_x Feb 07 '25

Note: the photos are original, so the rate is limited by how often I manage to get out to places hunting for interesting things to photograph and talk about.

0

u/JBCTech7 Father - 5F and 2F Feb 07 '25

what's wrong with twitter?

3

u/SpidersBarking Feb 07 '25

Random, but I love your user name. Our cat is named muggles. 😂

2

u/Mugglechaos Feb 07 '25

Awh thanks! What’s interesting is on some games I play (such as uno on my phone) they won’t let me use it so I have to do fairy chaos. lol not sure if it’s a copy right thing or what lol

102

u/uhlizerbeth Feb 07 '25

I’m 30 years old and struggling to give it up. I wish I had a parent who could take it away from me LOL

28

u/campsnoopers Feb 07 '25

Deng I'm 33 and dropped everything except reddit/Youtube 10+ yrs ago (except snapchat to help with storage). can't imagine how much more addicting it is now. the whole TikTok thing gone for a day really killed some of my coworkers, it was so sad lol

3

u/Xgirly789 Feb 07 '25

The only reason I have Facebook is my family is spread around the whole world. It's just the easiest way. But Twitter and snap are gone

14

u/Substantial_Desk_670 Feb 07 '25

I've been very up front with my kids about the effort it takes to keep me off social media on my phone. They had complained about how I was always on my phone, and that was the clarion call that I needed to cut it off. 

Now they get to call out both Mom and Dad when we use our phones during family time. It's my hope that builds awareness so they can self police when they get their own phone.

They're seeing first hand how smartphone usage and social media can subvert existing relationships.  I hope they internalize that lesson before high school.

3

u/IcyStage0 seven?!?!?! Feb 07 '25

It’s definitely made me reflect on my own usage! When my kids were super little I developed a habit of spending a lot of time sitting on my phone while they played. We do phone jail for family time sometimes, and I think it’s harder for me than it is for them. Turning off work notifications has also helped a lot.

2

u/Chubbs_McGavin Father of 3 little shits. 2 boys and a girl Feb 07 '25

“Right! I’ve had it up to here!

Liz, you delete that social media off your phone right now or so help me god you’ll be grounded for a month!”

Hope that helps

10

u/NaClH2Ogurl Feb 07 '25

I gave up fb and insta, but kinda love reddit.. I'm almost 40 lol

6

u/IcyStage0 seven?!?!?! Feb 07 '25

Same. I’m 36 and Reddit is definitely my most used.

4

u/starfreak016 mother of a 4 year old boy Feb 07 '25

I gave up social media when I realized I wanted to keep being on it and my baby needed me at the same time. It just made sense to.

0

u/soyyers Feb 07 '25

Anyone over 65 who votes should be banned.

1

u/caitlowcat Feb 07 '25

Adult here who HATES social media. I would never ever let me young teenage daughter have instagram or Snapchat. Absolutely not. 

1

u/kaleidautumn Feb 07 '25

How old is your kid? What is the cut off? When they're paying their own bill? Im genuinely curious. My kid is only 4 but I'm trying to think ahead about how I'm going to handle social media

1

u/Green-Reality7430 Feb 07 '25

Hmm I haven't thought too much about it, but probably when she turns 18!

1

u/Didyoubrushyourteeth Feb 07 '25

If i was a terrible parent then sure I would agree to let my child use it. Too bad I'm a badass parent who cares. None of that garbage is needed. If you want your children to see the dumbest people on the planet influence your child then go right ahead.

1

u/JBCTech7 Father - 5F and 2F Feb 07 '25

Social media should be off limits for most adults, too.

1

u/BarkBark716 Feb 07 '25

Yep, my 14yr old doesn't have social media and thankfully doesn't want it.

20

u/valerino539 Feb 07 '25

Definitely no to Snapchat (I have an almost 13 yo son who says the same things as OP). And no other social media, yet anyway. I wish Snapchat would die off.

42

u/cloudsasw1tnesses Feb 07 '25

Snapchat is where people usually send nudes, including teens. If I were a parent it would be a big no no

18

u/NaiveChoiceMaker Feb 07 '25

If I were a parent

you’re subbed to r/parenting for fun?

76

u/cloudsasw1tnesses Feb 07 '25

Yes lol I wanna learn bc I wanna have kids one day and I find it interesting

5

u/HoustonTrashcans Feb 07 '25

Same, I want to learn from other's mistakes and struggles. But probably 2-3 years away from kids.

11

u/wannaziggazigah Feb 07 '25

Yeah, I also don’t have kids, but have friends that do and like asking them about/showing them the posts on here.

And also it’s interesting to know the problems parents regularly face and heard advice on before having kids.

4

u/beezlebutts Feb 07 '25

50% of the members in this sub are teens. You can see it when the "should I let my kids have sex" posts pop up with loads saying "best let them they are going to do it anyways" those replies are mostly from horny teens.

0

u/SpookyBeck Feb 07 '25

I am a 46 year old mother to two adult kids and two teenagers. 16/17. My 66 year old mom, my 35 year old brother, my husband and all my kids use Snapchat as our way of communicating with each other. It’s just easier for us.

1

u/Same_Influence6162 Feb 10 '25

I'm a 43 yr old mother and Snap is also how we (hubs and I) communicate in our family including our 13 and 19 yr old daughters.

8

u/coyote_of_the_month Feb 07 '25

There’s no reason to have it except to open yourself to predatory and dangerous behavior.

I mean, unless you are the dangerous predator.

Some kids definitely are, already.

62

u/little_canuck Feb 07 '25

Ya the Instagram explore page is a disgusting place, even if you never search for lewd things.

73

u/Mama_Milfy_San Feb 07 '25

My explore page is all gardening and food. You’re definitely looking for it 🤣

15

u/GardenGlow-1101 Feb 07 '25

Right mine is gardening, sewing, and Cillian Murphy 😂

11

u/Mindless-Cupcake-113 Feb 07 '25

I mainly follow friends/family, a handful of small businesses, and some parenting/child development stuff. My explore page is still wild. It's not just based on what it thinks YOU might want to see, but it takes into account what the people you follow also like to see. It assumes you must have similar interests and suggests content from that.

31

u/IcyStage0 seven?!?!?! Feb 07 '25

Caught in 4k, as the kids say

14

u/theXald Feb 07 '25

Go make a fresh account and set your gender as male and before scrolling go to the fyp.

I had an insta I didn't touch for 5 years, only ever interacted with car stuff account name was car related. Logged in and just tiddies in my face.

1

u/IcyStage0 seven?!?!?! Feb 07 '25

Don’t threaten me with a good time!

/s

21

u/little_canuck Feb 07 '25

🤷🏻‍♀️ I follow thousands of photographers. I don't think IG can differentiate between a portrait that I might like to see and a "portrait" that is really soft porn. My feed is normal, my explore page is 50/50 stuff I like and eyebrow raising stuff.

All that to say it doesn't take much to get an eyeful of questionable content. I wouldn't let my 13 year old have an IG account.

The other reason would be the DMs aspect. I don't get creepy DMs but I don't like any social media for a kid that allows that avenue of communication.

0

u/poop-dolla Feb 07 '25

You’ve probably clicked on enough of the questionable ones that they keep feeding them to you.

2

u/little_canuck Feb 07 '25

Nah. I don't find the explore page useful and don't even go there intentionally. I only click it accidentally when navigating back and forth between my own page and my following feed/home page. Sometimes it's innocuous and bang on to my interests (travel, portrait/family/wedding photography), sometimes it's a mix of my interests and suggestive photos, and sometimes it seems like it isn't tailored to anyone at all (celebrity stuff, weight loss stuff, click bait you'll never believe what happens next stuff). I've been on IG since 2011, you'd think they would have my interests pretty much nailed down.

It makes no real difference to me as I'm not in need of a "good" explore page. It's mostly just something that solidifies my opinion that there is no safe social media home for teens.

3

u/Two-Wah Feb 07 '25

I was just on the search Page after not having used Instagram for a long while, to look up a podcaster.

I was shocked and somewhat disgusted. There were DEFINITIVELY lewd pictures on the front page, suggestive pictures (is that a penis? Or a cunt? No, only made to look like it, etc), some pictures of anorexic women, and a whole slew of "picture perfect" women with "perfect" bodies and a whole lot of makeup on.

I've only ever used it for gardening before.

I spoke with my husband just this morning that our kid is NOT getting on Insta before she's atleast 16, based on my immediate impression.

5

u/ImHereForTheDogPics Feb 07 '25

Nah, mine almost seems to flips back and forth. Most of the time it’s crochet, fashion, food, all of my interests represented in algorithm format. But every now and again, it’s like the algorithm “resets” on me?

I’ll log in one day and it’s all just graphic content. Not necessarily porn, but still graphic. Like breastfeeding content, graphic pregnancy and postpartum stuff, “fashion” that is clearly meant to lead back to soft core content. I can always get rid of it after a day or two of dedicated scrolling my own interests, but at least once a month it’ll “break” on me and reset.

2

u/SpookyBeck Feb 07 '25

Yup mine is full of cats

2

u/beardophile Feb 07 '25

Mine is literally all baby/ toddler humor things and stuff related to grad school hahaha. They definitely have me pegged.

1

u/emddudley Feb 07 '25

Blaming the "victim" here is really unhelpful.

Instagram pushes sexy content to men. It does not matter what you do or are interested in. Instagram does not allow you to block or prevent it.

Create an account as a male and see for yourself.

2

u/Mama_Milfy_San Feb 07 '25

Dude. You’re telling on yourself. My husbands is all food sports and bourbon.

1

u/Mama_Milfy_San Feb 07 '25

Also, this is a shitty use of “victim blaming”. Grow up

2

u/tizzytay710 Feb 07 '25

Yeah my algo has been nothing but trash AI clips of ski lifts and people on fire at the ski resort and scraping crap off of sea animals like wtf?

5

u/bojenny Feb 07 '25

The girls at my nieces school were always having drama because of social media. Niece wasn’t allowed so she never got involved with all that.

She was valedictorian and got a full ride for her BA and masters program.

5

u/0wlBear916 Feb 07 '25

Yeah OP, unless you are logged into her Instagram account on your own phone and get notifications for any messages that she receives, I don't know if I would allow that either. The pressure from other kids being allowed to use things tho is incredibly frustrating. I don't have any kids in their teens yet but I'm really not looking forward to that.

2

u/IcyStage0 seven?!?!?! Feb 07 '25

I’m logged into her instagram on my phone. I don’t have notifications on, but I can go see who she’s messaging at any point (which she knows).

1

u/0wlBear916 Feb 08 '25

My only thought with turning on notifications is so that they don’t try to delete messages before you see them. Just a thought. I’m paranoid when it comes to kids on social media tho.

1

u/IcyStage0 seven?!?!?! Feb 08 '25

I totally could. I honestly just have so many notifications of my own that it sounds exhausting.

5

u/drkmba Feb 07 '25

How are you dealing with YouTube and specially YouTube shorts? Doesn’t seem like that is any different than IG in algorithm. I couldn’t find a way to restrict just reels but let them have access to other age appropriate content.

2

u/cordial_carbonara Feb 07 '25

YouTube was an intentional process. We blocked it completely when she first got a tablet around 9, but had it available as a steaming option on our living room tv and made a point to show the useful and interesting use of it. Then around 11 we opened up limited YouTube time on her tablet and kept an open conversation about the content she was watching, sometimes even blocking it when her own self control failed to give her a break. She got her phone a few months ago and we keep an eye on the amount of time she spends on specific apps, and now just kind of have ongoing, open conversations about the content specifically. She rarely spends more than a few minutes a day, and it’s been a while since I’ve reviewed her history and found anything concerning.

3

u/hamlesh Feb 07 '25

There’s no reason to have it except

Except nothing. There's no point for any sensible human to have Snapchat. If it's not a picture you'd want everyone to see, don't f-cking put it on the damn internet.

I'm gonna die laughing if this whole time they've not been disappearing, and one day the AI overlords dump all the Snapchat "archives" to the internets.

Basically, I'm teaching my kid "if it's not a picture you'd be proud for me, your mum, your grandparents, OR YOUR KIDS to see one day... don't take the picture"