As awareness grows, the market for parental control software continues to expand, offering essential tools for monitoring and protecting young users.
This article will explore social media safety for kids and teens and offer insights from Titania Jordan, the chief marketing officer of Bark, the leading parental controls company for families.
The numbers behind social media safety for teens
Today's teens are highly engaged with social media platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram, and they’re a huge part of young people’s daily lives. However, this engagement brings several risks, including privacy issues, exposure to inappropriate content, cyberbullying, and more.
Did you know that as of 2022, about 50% of teens in the US have experienced cyberbullying? This statistic is eye-opening, and it’s clear just how large the serious emotional and psychological effects of online harassment can be.
What Should Parents Do About Online Safety?
Parents can help their children create a safer digital environment to mitigate the risks of online dangers. Children need to be taught to be cautious about sharing personal information, to report or block any suspicious behavior, and to talk to their parents if they ever feel uncomfortable about situations they encounter online.
Bark’s annual report goes into detail about the common dangers faced by kids. Some of the most prevalent threats in 2023 can be visualized here:
Other threats, like suicidal ideation and online predators, may be experienced generally less frequently, but they can have more dire consequences.
Why is internet safety important for kids?
Internet safety is crucial for kids because of the real-life consequences of dangers like bullying, online predators, and encountering harmful individuals or content. Parents play a vital role in educating kids about internet safety by setting clear guidelines and discussing the potential dangers. Tips for parents include:
Teaching kids about the importance of not sharing personal information
Supervising their online activities
Implementing safer browsing practices, such as using kid-friendly search engines and keeping privacy settings high
Parents can also employ parental control apps like Bark for extra monitoring help.
What does the parental control software market look like today?
There are various options for parental control software to help parents safeguard their children's online activities. Popular software includes Qustodio, Net Nanny, and Norton Family. Key features to look for include web filtering, screen time management, and monitoring alerts.
Bark stands out as the best option, as it is praised for its comprehensive monitoring capabilities and user-friendly interface. Bark also offers additional features like web blocking, location tracking, and more.
The Bark app enables parents to download Bark directly on their kids' devices—from iPhones to Chromebooks. Families can also purchase the Bark Phone, which comes with Bark’s software built in and extra features like app and contact approvals, tamper-proof controls, and daily screen time limits.
Bark’s artificial intelligence scans for worrisome content in children’s texts, emails, photos, videos, and content in 30+ apps and social media platforms. However, state-of-the-art AI does more than flag simple keywords. Bark’s algorithm analyzes language in context and is trained to recognize the ever-evolving nuances of kid, tween, and teen slang — including memes, emojis, and more.
Expert insights: Our interview with the CMO of Bark, Titania Jordan
To provide deeper insights into Bark's benefits and features, we interviewed Titania Jordan, Bark’s chief marketing officer. Jordan shared how Bark’s technology helps protect children from online dangers.
Q: How does Bark help parents protect their children from the dangers of social media and the internet?
A: Bark helps mitigate online threats by giving parents insight into their child’s world and what they’re experiencing. A timely alert can change a child’s life, allowing parents to intervene and get them help if needed.
Q: What steps does Bark take to ensure the privacy and security of children's data?
A: We have strenuous safeguards in place to protect our customers’ data. All databases, physical servers, and web browsing sessions are encrypted to help secure your child’s data and give parents peace of mind that their information is protected. From a compliance standpoint, we comply with all relevant privacy and security regulations and frameworks. You can find more details about Bark’s commitment to privacy here.
Q: What are the most common online threats that children and teens face today?
A: In line with the numbers above, I’d say the most common threats facing teens today are bullying, suicidal ideation, predation, sextortion, and exposure to graphic sexual and violent content. When it comes to platforms, the most dangerous apps are Snapchat, Discord, KIK, and Reddit.
Q: How does Bark incorporate user feedback to improve its parental control features and services?
A: User feedback is the engine that keeps Bark constantly updating and improving, and we’re thankful for our close relationship with our users. You'll regularly see Brandon Hilkert, our chief technology officer, popping into Parenting in a Tech World to ask for feedback directly.
Other times, a parent will leave a comment asking for a new feature and just a short while later, he’ll announce that the requested feature is live. A product is only as good as the value that users get from it, which is why we strive to deliver updates that help parents protect their children better.
Q: Can you share any success stories or feedback from users that highlight the impact of Bark?
A: We hear from parents literally every day about how our products have changed their family’s life for the better. We also get grateful parents telling us how Bark alerts have even literally saved their child’s life in the case of suicidal ideation or online predators.
Our testimonials page has customer feedback you can peruse, but here is one of my favorites:
“It saved our family — I just want to get on here and say PLEASE get Bark online monitoring. Yesterday it saved our family. Out of respect for our son’s privacy I won’t go into details. But I will say this: (1) we are a family who talks about EVERYTHING on the daily, I literally run a non-profit about kids and mental health… (2) he is an AMAZING, thoughtful, kind, sweet person and (3) he almost got into a situation that would have haunted him for the rest of his life. You need the open communication AND Bark to battle modern childhood.”
Tips for parents to help ensure online safety for their Kids
According to Bark's CMO, there are a few more things to keep in mind to ensure your kids’ online safety.
Take a digital inventory. Right now, a younger kid probably doesn’t have access to too much tech — iPads, the family room TV, maybe a Nintendo Wii. Eventually, however, this list will grow, so be sure you’re staying on top of all their devices.
Be mindful of your growing tech collection. Before you add more tech, think about what you have and how you’ll add parental controls to them.
Choose Android, not Apple, for that first device. iPhones are designed for adult privacy, not child safety, and parental control apps don’t work very well on them.
Don’t fall victim to “not my kid syndrome.” You never know what will happen, and good kids can make bad choices and mistakes. After all, they’re slowly learning to be an adult, but their frontal lobes aren’t fully developed yet. Stay in tune with their actions, and give yourself some grace when missteps occur. But never bury your head in your sand — always try to address problems when they pop up.
What are some more guidelines for keeping kids safe online?
The following guidelines for online safety are important to keep in mind, not just for your kids, but also in general:
Keep personal information private: Never share personal details like full name, address, phone number, or school name online.
Use strong passwords: Create unique passwords and avoid sharing them with anyone except parents or guardians.
Be cautious with strangers: Do not interact with or accept friend requests from people you don’t know in real life.
Think before posting: Consider the consequences of what you share and how it might affect you and others.
Report suspicious activity: Immediately inform a trusted adult if something or someone online makes you uncomfortable or if you encounter bullying or harassment.
Use privacy settings: Adjust privacy settings on social media and other online platforms to control who can see your information.
Avoid clicking unknown links: Be wary of links in emails, messages, or ads that look suspicious or come from unknown sources.
Limit screen time: Balance online activities with offline ones, and take breaks to avoid too much screen time.
Invest in a parental control app: Ultimately, parental control apps help safeguard kids from online threats, manage screen time, and monitor activities to ensure a safer digital environment.
Online safety — The Bottom Line
Many parents don’t know the full extent of all the dangers facing kids today, and this is partly because older generations didn’t grow up with this unprecedented access to technology and information like today’s kids. Parents may also not fully comprehend all of the dangers because of the lightning speed at which platforms and apps pop up, evolve, and add features.
Ensuring social media and internet safety for teens is crucial to help protect against online threats like cyberbullying and exposure to harmful content. The parental control software market offers various tools, with Bark being a top choice for its advanced monitoring and user-friendly features. Stay informed and proactive in safeguarding your children's online activities.
