Wednesday, 16 December 2015. Recently there have been applications available for smartphones that are classified as “just for young people”. to which even adults do not have access as a result of the security measures established by the system itself. But be careful!, if you have sons and daughters, nephews or adolescent students; this may be a topic risky. Know the reasons to be very attentive to the material and the information to which are exposed your young people, because you may be surprised.
The time that the adolescents devote to the use of their smartphones and the computing skills they have acquired, and that appear to be innate; could surprise to more than one adult. It is already impossible to underestimate the power of the Internet and the universe of information that it is possible to find. Hence the importance of comprehensive monitoring on these issues.
One of these “dangerous” applications and which recently have been gradually adding many young followers has the name “After School” offering a space to share ideas, thoughts, comments and images related to topics of interest to adolescents as the bullying, anxiety, depression and secret loves.
But what is new? That everything is shared there is incognito. Adolescents don’t need to be identified, put their name, last name or photo to participate; and access to adults is so limited that when the application suspects that one of its members is not a young, it automatically will lock itself.
The application is designed for its integration in closed discussion forums by educational institution, and its popularity has increased dramatically to the point that according to one of its creators, Michael Callahan, in this last year the platform is visited by up to 10 million users; all young students in schools in the United States.
Apparently, at the beginning the initiative was good and with eminently therapeutic purposes. But according to recent experiences revealed by young people and adults, little by little the application admitted each time more and more violent and aggressive messages, with high sexual content and even terrorists; for which was necessary to raise the age of participation of its users of 12 to 17 years and even some platforms such as “Apple” decided to retire; being possible to have access only through “Android”.
In short and in regard to this controversial issue, it is common to hear complaints and cries of mothers and fathers worried about the images or comments that in social networks have been able to discover, from other adolescents or even of their own children.
That is why psychologists and experts in the subject always recommend to parents to stay alert with regard to what see, listen and write their children by means of networks, especially if they are adolescents. Encourages conversation and give them your love and confidence, therefore, there will not be another application better than that!
ALFA