3 Snapchat Features Parents Don't Know Enough About

*this is not about how messages disappear.

I have written about Snapchat before. In fact I give an hour long presentation teaching parents about it–how it works, how to use it, how to set up the parental controls. It's the social media app parents have the hardest time figuring out.  In today’s post, I give you 3 Snap features that parents need to know more about. Paid subscribers get a video tutorial of how to find one of them that’s notoriously hidden. I also share two things worth flagging and give an events update.

Photo by Souvik Banerjee on Unsplash

3 Snapchat Features

Kids love Snapchat because of the disappearing messages. Parents generally understand this. But here are 3 “Uniquely Snapchat” features that parents need to be aware of.

1. My Eyes Only

Snapchat has an extensive camera section. One of the options in there is called My Eyes Only. My Eyes Only is a password protected camera roll. If your child is storing pictures they don’t want you to see, there’s a good chance they are in here. Unlike the camera roll on their phone, you can’t grab their phone and look through their My Eyes Only. They would have to open it for you or give up the password. And no parental control app can get in there either.

2. The SnapMap

Some parents are aware of the Snapmap. The Snapmap is a way to see where your friends are. 

If your kid is out and about and can see a friend is close by– how fun is that? 

But what if your child is home on a friday night and can see all their friends are hanging out somewhere without them–how awful does that feel? Did that happen to all of us when we were kids? Probably but at least we didn’t find out until we were back in school on Monday. Seeing it in real time. Ugh.

Even worse, what if a drug dealer has friended your child and now they can easily see each other's locations to do a deal– how horrifying is that?

You can implore your child to turn off their location settings but as a parent you can’t control them yourself.

3. Streaks 🔥

Some parents have heard about streaks. This is the gamification of snapping (sending texts on Snapchat is called snapping). Basically if two Snapchatters snap each other two days in a row they start a streak. The more consecutive days they snap the longer the streak. Maybe this seems harmless? Except kids get obsessed with streaks. I know kids who have given their account info to a friend so they can continue a streak for them if they’ve had their phone taken away or will be away from it for too long. Think about what a bad idea it is to give another kid access to log into your account and impersonate you. Think about how badly that can go.

What Parents Can Do

If you’re contemplating giving your child Snapchat, consider whether these features make the app too risky for your child given their age or maturity. 

If you’ve given Snapchat, at minimum talk to your child and talk some rules around these features. 

If you gave Snapchat and regret it, crawl back your yes. It really is ok to say no after you’ve said if you’ve learned new information about risks.

My articles How to Say No and How to Say Yes can help.

Worth Flagging

Two items parents might know about that are worth knowing about this week:

1. Coverstar

Coverstar launched in 2023 and it bills itself as the Kid Safe Tik Tok. I played around with it and it really does seem to just be kids doing TikTok dances etc. If you’ve got a child under 13 who needs to make TikTok dance videos like the rest of us need air–this might be a solution worth looking into. It's still priming your kid to want to be on social media which I don’t love but there's a way smaller risk they’ll get tempted into a dangerous TikTok Challenges or fed questionable content on this app than from the most powerful algorithm out there.

2. Teen Suicide Allegedly Connected To AI Chatbot

In case you haven’t heard about this. A young man in Florida committed suicide. His family is suing the AI Chatbot platform with whom he had been communicating. The suit alleges that an AI chatbot character pushed him to take his own life. More on the story here.

Events

• 11/12 Martha’s Vineyard Digital Parenting Sessions: Young Kids and Older Kids.

Paid Subscribers get a bonus video tutorial on how to find My Eyes Only