Advice: How do I keep my teen daughter safe on Snapchat?

This week, I'm starting a weekly advice feature. Social media touches every part of our lives, including our romantic relationships, parenting, work life, communication habits, and entertainment. Do you have a question about how social media is affecting your life or how to handle it?

Dear Dr. Golbeck,

I am worried about my 14-year-old daughter. I got her a smartphone so I could stay in touch with her when she is at school and when I am at work. She loves to take photographs and edit videos so she uses this part of the phone a lot. I want to encourage this talent. BUT I am very worried. I have found out that she is using Snapchat all the time. Those pictures disappear after she sees them. So I have no way to oversee what she's doing and what kinds of pictures she is seeing. I don't want to take the phone away but I do want to be a good parent. What do you advise?

-Anonymous in St. Louis

Dear Anon,

It's great that you want to make sure your daughter is using this kind of social media safely!

For readers who don't know, Snapchat is an app for mobile devices (like iPhones and tablets) that lets people send photos to friends. The photos are visible for a very short time – like 10 seconds – and then they permanently disappear. A technological twist is that, despite the fact that the service is based on disappearing photos, people have found many ways to save copies of them. The common – and well-founded – parental worry is that teens use this to sext (sending suggestive/naked/sexual photos to one another).

Right now, you don't know what kind of pictures your daughter is sending and who she's sending them to. They could just be outfits she's sharing with her friends or pics of the family dog, so there's no reason to be alarmed or accusing yet. She's fourteen now, and though you might still have some control over what she does, she will quickly move past that point. You will be most successful in the role of an educator and advocate right now.

It's time for a Talk.

Her age is when a lot of girls start being pressured to share revealing pictures of themselves. As a parent, there are a few things you can (and should) convey to her:

First, let her know that she should never send pictures because she thinks that's the way she will get boyfriends or girlfriends to like her. If this is what she must do to hold their attention, a new girl will eventually (and likely quickly) come along grab that attention away. The the kind of person who would demand these photos from her is probably not the kind of person she's looking for.

Second, estimates are that about a quarter of girls who send these pics find out that they have been shared without their permission. And that's just the ones who find out. A person who demands these pics is also the kind of person who might show them around to friends to brag. Even if the recipient doesn't choose to share, it's not hard to get ahold of someone's phone in a school, and his or her friends might take it upon themselves to browse through those photos (and even make copies for themselves). Having them shown on a screen is bad enough, but all it takes is a couple taps for those same pics to be posted online or emailed around. Fear of these consequences can go far in affecting your daughter's decisions about sharing.

Finally, she should know that there can be legal implications from sexting. Do a quick Google News search for "arrested" and "sexting" and you will see dozens of stories of teens facing felony child pornography charges. That includes people who take photos of themselves and share them with minors, and people who show the photos around. Whether or not this is the right way to handle teen sexting is almost irrelevant- your daughter should know that she could face those consequences if she ever sends sexual photos.

Sit your daughter down and tell her that you are glad she loves her phone, but that you want to be sure she understands that people will eventually ask for these kinds of photos. Explain that there are a lot of bad things that can happen if she does this, even if she totally trusts the person she's sharing with and even if she uses ephemeral sharing apps like Snapchat. Let her know that it's a bad idea and why. And keep talking with her about this and all the other issues she is facing as a young woman. Young people at this age understand "unintended consequences". If you can, find an example from your family or friends that you can use to explain this clearly to her. The same applies to dealing with boys and phones. In fact, it is even more important to explain these consequences to boys, who are most likely to be involved in bragging.

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Ultimately, though, she is reaching an age where you need to educate her and then trust her with technology. If she were committed to sending these types of pictures, she would find a way to do it – even if you took her phone away. So don't take the phone away but use it as a way to talk and educate -- you have a good opportunity here (for daughters and sons).

-Jen

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Photo credit Carissa Rogers