PhoneSpector

While there’s nothing wrong with finding love, it’s important to do so safely. With the advent of technology and the widespread availability of pornographic content, teenagers’ ideas of love have transformed for the worse. And one of the most alarming trends to have emerged in recent times is sexting.

Let’s look at what it’s all about and the dangers it poses.

What is sexting?

Short for sex texting, ‘sexting’ is a phenomenon that’s quite common among teens. Teens who have their own smartphones or tablets sometimes engage in conversations where they send each other sexually suggestive and provocative pictures and messages. These pictures could be their own or taken off the internet to evoke sexual desires in the other person. Teens usually engage in such messages when their parents are sleeping or are away from home. According to research, 20% of teens in the US have said they’ve engaged in sexting at some point.

Why is it dangerous?

In today’s world, it takes less than a minute for something to go viral on the internet. If your child’s partner turns out to be unfaithful, they can easily tarnish their reputation by publicizing the pictures they received. This can lead to your child being bullied by other kids, causing a lot of emotional duress.

Sexting leads to curiosity. Teens might want even want to have sex afterward. According to statistics, 76% of teens who have sexted eventually ended up having intercourse with their partners. This takes your teen’s attention off other more pressing matters like their education, career, etc. It can even lead to an unwanted pregnancy.

Teens may regret sexting later. Teenage years are a vulnerable time. Kids get carried away, trusting everyone and anyone who compliments them. Getting involved in conversations like this at such an early age and breaking up as they mature can take a toll on a kid’s mental health.

What can you do?

The first and foremost step you need to take is to detect whether your teen is actually sexting. Once you’ve figured out, you can then explain to them why it’s wrong and why they need to be more careful when it comes to trusting people.

If your child is sexting, the chances are that they won’t ever admit it. You’ll have to find out yourself. Seek help from phone spy apps like PhoneSpector. PhoneSpector is hidden tracking software which gives you remote control access to your teen’s calls and chats without letting them know. You can even retrieve all that they’ve deleted to hide from you. PhoneSpector needs no jail-breaking. Whether you have an iPhone or an Android device, it only takes 45 seconds to sign up.

The rule’s simple: Either be loved or walk away!

According to the Institute of Family Studies, 20% men and 13% women in American admitted that they cheated on their partners. Before yours does the same, here are a few signs to look out for:

1) Hostile behavior

If your gut feelings says that your partner is involved with someone else, chances are they probably are. According to Huffington, when people confront their partners and accuse them of infidelity, the partners usually get aggressive. Instead of accepting their mistake, they show hostile behavior. If you feel like your spouse is being short-tempered lately, is angry at your surprises and jokes, or shouts at you unnecessarily; you have a valid reason to doubt their faithfulness.

2) Change in habits

Has your spouse lately started coming home late? Do you see them spending surprisingly more time on grooming themselves, than they usually do? Has their sexual activity either increased or decreased? All of these signs are straightforward giveaways! Partners get less active in bed when they get the same attention elsewhere and get more active at times to cover up. Another change in habit you need to look out for are cluster cues. These are small changes in body language which indicate a person’s willingness to stay near you. If your partner mostly leans away from you, keeps himself at a distance, or usually looks the other way — red light alert!

3) Increased phone use

This is one of the most easily detectable signs. If your spouse is away from the person they’re cheating on you with, they’re most likely to stay in touch via their smartphone. What you see as a result is your spouse spending too much time on their phones. At times they even tend to quickly hide the phone away if you approach them. Other sure-fire signs are deleted chat history, deleted call list, talking on phone in a whispering manner, and new passwords on different apps.

The solution

Whether it’s on online websites or different social media platforms, the nature of cyber attacks remains the same; disgracing people and putting them down.

Studies and statistics show that cyberbullying happens to kids, teenagers and students more often than parents are aware.

A Pew Research study published in 2018 concluded that cyberbullying was experienced by more than 59% of teens in the US.

Feeling backed in a corner, with no means to support themselves or help their peers, teenagers feel like teachers, parents, politicians, and social media houses have failed them.

Let’s take an in-depth look at the latest trends and tactics used to cyber bully teens.

The Latest Trends and Tactics Used In Cyberbullying

E-Mail Threats

Bullies send threatening and intimidating emails to impressionable youngsters. The content of the email is usually explicit and enjoins them to follow their demands or they’ll face dire consequences.

Most of the times, the perpetrators are looking for some ‘fun’ and want to exploit vulnerable minds that don’t have a strong sense of self to stand up for themselves.

Flaming and Harassment

With a plethora of social media platforms encouraging heated discussions and online forums facilitating anonymous commentators, it’s easy to use profanity against people.

Hiding behind a computer screen, keyboard warriors spew hate comments and criticize people without fear.

As their anonymous IDs allow them to ignite flames of hatred, public flaming is a very common trend of cyberbullying.

Exclusion

Social exclusion is the practice of ostracizing a peer from the wider circle and not allowing them to sit, eat, talk, and laugh publicly.

Cyber exclusion uses the same practice to exclude children from certain social media groups and not inviting them to game online.

If a child does try to take part in a public conversation, they are either ignored or removed and deleted from the forum.

Outing

The act of outing involves sharing personal information, pictures, and videos of someone without their knowledge.

An accidental outing is one thing, but, if you consciously target someone and use private conversations to out their secrets, then it’s just mean spirited!

Phishing

Phishing involves creating wrong identities to fool someone into believing they’re talking to someone who doesn’t actually exist.

It’s often used by bullies to trick kids into revealing personal information or by predators to gain access to vulnerable children.

What Can Parents Do?

With teen suicide on the rise and increased reports of teen depression and anxiety, the dire situation needs to be highlighted and measures need to be taken to prevent cyberbullying.

As parents, you have a significant role to play in ensuring the safety of your children. Besides restricting internet and smartphone usage, you can also take proactive steps to monitor and supervise your kid’s screen time.

Spy phone apps like PhoneSpector can help you keep an eye on your children’s online activity and provide a foolproof way to scrutinize their social media presence.

The latest phone tracking software not only gives you access to your child’s whereabouts, but it also provides you access to their call history, messages, browser history, photos, videos, and social media messages.

Contact them to buy the tracking software compatible with Android and iPhone devices!

Though you may be a parent who is heavily involved with your children and is already informed about their online activities and interactions, the more you know the better equipped you will be.

Online Slang that Throws People Off

Many parents keep track of their children’s online activities using phone spy apps. Such phone spy apps allow parents to remotely track their children’s iPhones and Android sets. This enables them to keep track of the interactions of their children and step or intervene when and if the need arises.

Of course, there are many parents who struggle with the amount of online slang used by the younger and more tech native population today. If you’re a parent who struggles with deciphering the online slang your children and others use, here are some common terms and what they mean!

Anonymizer

This is a portal or website that acts as an intermediate. In other words, using one of these allows the person using to anonymously engage in various kinds of activities online. They cannot be traced.

Bash Board

The equivalent of a physical bulletin board except that this particular kind is online. Though ideally this is meant to leave messages and shout outs, bash boards are often used to post mean, malicious and demeaning content.

Bullicide or Cyberbullicide

The act of taking one’s own life as a direct or indirect result of bullying experienced physically in person or online.  

Catfishing

The creation and running of false online social media and other accounts made with the intention of duping others into false romantic engagements meant to hurt or exploit.

Flaming

This refers to sending a person or group online a barrage of aggressive, abusive, angry and threatening messages or texts in an attempt to overwhelm.

Happy Slapping

This involves the recording or video documenting of physical or real life harassment, bullying and assault with the intention to post and publicize the same online. This obviously causes more shame and trauma to the victim.

Revenge Porn

This is sexually explicit personal material that is circulated as an act of spite by a jilted or enraged ex-partner or invested party. Revenge porn is usually directed at and more damaging to women or young girls due to existing patriarchal structures.

Sexting

Sexting is the sending and receiving of messages and texts of a sexually explicit or suggestive nature. This is usually consensual however can be dangerous if the other involved is an online sexual predator. The same may also lead to premature physical sexual encounters.

Trolling

This is stalking someone’s social media posts and needlessly commenting and divulging often unwanted information as and when the opportunity presents itself.

Abbreviations

Abbreviations are also used extensively by cyber bullies and young people online alike. Where you have your regular abbreviations like lol (laugh out), brb (be right back) and otw (on the way), you have others of the more aggressive nature.

These include abbreviations such as 4Q (f*** you), GCAD (get cancer & die) and DIRL (die in real life).

Why is all this Important?

Understanding what your children are saying and what is being said to them just helps enlighten you with regard to their interactions. The more you educate yourself, the better you will be able to supervise your children online and ensure that they stay safe.  

Keeping an eye out for words and abbreviations that may be said with the intent to harm helps you know exactly when your child may need you to step in and support them!

The internet is rife with people harboring malicious intent. While adults in their 20s up to their 50s are smart and tech-savvy enough to recognize a scam when they see one; senior citizens are often not as digitally aware.

A story published by Bloomberg revealed how criminals steal a staggering $37 billion from American senior citizens yearly. This rate is alarming and as kids of elderly parents, the responsibility falls on us to keep them safe from online scammers. Here are a few things you can do to keep your parents safe online.

Educate Them on Internet Security in Their Own Language

It is important to educate our parents on the dangers of the digital world. More importantly, you need to explain it to them in their own language. Tech terms will most likely sound like gibberish to them so you need to explain it to them in simple language.

Educate them on the importance of keeping their digital assets safe, such as their bank account details, passwords, personal information, etc. Help them understand how hackers can target them and how they can stay safe.

Explain to Them the Various Methods of Getting Hacked

In order for your parents to get a better understanding of how online scamming works, you need to explain to them the various methods hackers employ. These can include:

 Clicking on a malware containing ad that can download viruses

 Clicking on links in spam email

 Giving out passwords or personal details to strangers online

Outline Some of the Most Common Scams for Them

Talk to them openly about the various kinds of scams that are popular online. These can include:

 Computer Scams: Someone contacts them to say that they have a virus in their computer and they can fix it if they give them the username and password.

 Sweepstakes Scams: When they tell you you’ve won a huge amount and you just have to pay them a small fee to get the winnings.

 Job Scams: Tempt them with interesting job opportunities that require personal information

 Tax Scams: Scamming the elderly by telling them they have pending IRS taxes for which they can be penalized, unless they pay a fee, etc.