This week I have been running sessions for our school community called "Social networking Apps and your daughter", the idea was to introduce parents and teachers to the apps that our students are using in the hope that they would feel more comfortable in downloading them themselves and discovering how they work, what the dangers maybe, how to control the privacy settings etc. We worked our way through SnapChat, KIK, Instagram, Omegle, Tumblr and Pinterest, although it's the first three that have become the most popular with the Tween population.
Whilst nearly ALL parents in attendance said their daughters were using Instagram, none of them knew that to download Instagram you must be a minimum 13 yrs of age.
Ultimately Instagram is a photo-sharing app, it's easy to use and can link directly to your Facebook, Twitter, email and messaging accounts. Instagram is not for children under the age of 13 and they have strict Terms of Use and Community Guidelines that make their age requirement clear.
The dangers lie in the temptation for children to compete for who has the most "followers", just like "friends" in Facebook. If they are adding strangers as "followers" of their photos and then linking into other services as KIK chat that will enable complete strangers to contact them as well as collect images of them. The younger the child, the safer & confident they can feel online. There is the chance too that younger users might search hash tagged words/themes in Instagram which some declare is dangerous, however I would argue, that if they a child is inclined to search #sex on Instagram, then the chances are they have already searched it in Google and have seen EVERYTHING already!
I have just come across two great articles on Instagram, one written by a mother who found her under aged daughter using Instagram and the other has some good tips for using instagram safely. Contrary to what is said in the first article, Instagram, like many of these newer apps are available on ALL smart phones, tablets devices and even MP3 players, with Internet connectivity and touch screens, such as the iPod Touch. It's also available across the Mac & Android platforms and is coming very soon to Windows 8 and desktop PC's.
http://internet-safety.yoursphere.com/2012/02/instagram-is-it-okay-for-kids-what-parents-need-to-know/
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57508430-93/how-instagram-became-the-social-network-for-tweens/
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