Your kids are using Instagram: Is it safe?
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Instagram is the latest social media craze. With more than 100 million users, the social media phone app is especially popular with tweens and teens.
But parents should know it’s not immune to the problems that plague other social media.
Just ask the seventh-grade girls in a church youth group co-led by KATU Problem Solver Shellie Bailey-Shah. Like typical tweens, they love clothes, cell phones and social media.
Of the 11 girls gathered for a cookie-making party, only one is on Facebook and one on Twitter. But half the girls use Instagram and the others want to.
Instagram is an app used to easily share photos with captions.
“This is where you can see who's liked your photos and who's commented,” demonstrates Kate, 13.
Like Twitter, people can follow you, and you can follow them.
“Do you follow any celebrities?” asks Bailey-Shah.
“I follow Justin Bieber,” says Kate enthusiastically. In fact, Justin Bieber has 4.3 million Instagram followers.
The girls have followers, too. Molly, also 13, posted a photo from the KATU interview. Her followers started commenting within three seconds!
“How many times a day do you check Instagram?” asks Bailey-Shah.
The girls confess to checking Instagram 10 to 30 times a day... sometimes more.
“Like, all the time,” admits Jenna, age 13.
The girls insist Instagram is more fun than texting because of the photo sharing.
“You can know what other people are doing,” says Lauren, 12.
“And you feel a lot more connected (to your friends),” adds Jenna.
The girls say their parents believe than Instagram is safer than Facebook. But like all social media, Instagram has its pitfalls.
“I’ve seen pages that have been made just to bully someone,” says Molly.
“One person tried to follow me that was a naked account, you know,” says Kate. “I blocked it.”
Instagram users can delete, block, and report inappropriate posts for review.
But the Problem Solvers urge parents to do more:
• Make sure all your child's photos are set to private.
• Turn off geotagging, the function that shows where your child's photos were taken.
• Follow your kids’ Instagram accounts.
• Take your child's phone daily and check his/her feed - the photos, he/she is getting from other users.
Your kids aren’t on Instagram, you say? It may be only a matter of time before they ask.
To sign up for Instagram, you are supposed to be at least 13 years old. However, many of the app’s users admit to being younger than the requirement.
Follow KATU News on Instagram for photos behind the scenes and across our incredible region. We're @KATUTV on Instagram.
Personally, I'm not in favor of juveniles having smart phones (does a 14 year old really need an iPhone or android device?), never have been. I've also felt the same about Myspace and Facebook, if you're 18 or older and can afford the cost of a smart phone, then you should have it. But so much of this, I personally think is unnecessary for the kids, and no, I'm not old. I'm younger than the Gen-X crowd.
Just another tool to feed the ever increasing narcissism present in todays youth.
 @deejm2112Â
Amen. The desire to be a celebrity of any kind just keeps growing and growing. I am absolutely astounded at how many people will admit a news crew into their life in a time of personal trauma and have it broadcast to strangers and think that is somehow a good thing for them to do. Anything to get noticed I guess.
what ever happened to a good book, peace and quiet!
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 @ghost rider My kids' favorite past-time!
 @ghost rider I think I will stay home tonight and book a good peace! Thank you for the suggestion!
 @ghost rider So let me guess, when you were a teen (is about 100 years ago in the ballpark?) all you wanted was a good book, peace and quiet? Never ceases to amaze me how, as people get older (I am 43), they forget how juvenile they were as kids.
I'll let you get back to your abacus and warming your hands over a burning lump of coal now.
>Like typical tweens, they love clothes, cell phones and social media.
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Maybe their parents should teach them to love their family.
Yet another internet time waster.....for children and pedophiles.Â
Teens suffer from obsessive/compulsive behaviors, it's part of being a teenager! Â In my youth, it was music and fast cars, everything had to have a stereo blasting in order to be fun! Â Now it's little cubes with pictures on them - so what? Â Nothing's changed except my parents didn't have to pay a monthly fee for my stereo :) Â
@Umhal Alot has changed. The amount of pervs out there has never been so high. Other than that, i agree with you.
 @rnm  @Umhal I think the same amount of pervs have always been out there, it's just instant and expanded news.
 @deejm2112
I disagree. A lot of minor pervs that would have given up for lack of stimulation and possibly stumbled their way into something meaningful to fill their empty heads and hearts now have unlimited 24/7 stimulation at their wormy little fingertips. And they are making the most of it thanks to all the silly little teen girls who post their naughty pics online thinking no one but their ever faithful and true boyfriend will see it.
A fertile new hunting ground for pervs, whack jobs, pedos, ID thieves, and others, just like facebook and myspace have become.
Almost all of you are painfully bad at understanding how the internet works. It is a wonder that you managed to figure out how to post here in the first place.*waves kids off lawn with cane and all thatÂ
And why are kids texting, instagramming all day? Perhaps they need to take the cell phones away for awhile. Then make them perhaps do some school work. It is actually laughable that people feel they just can not do without a cell phone.
And as usual the admit to breaking the rules as far as age goes. What are their parents doing?
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I was wondering what the heck this website was because it sounds like its blowing up. Â It sounds completely dumb and lame, but I guess this is the type of thing zombies like!
This will become as dangerous as Facebook and twitter.
 @Rob C 503 Amazing how your comment went from Facebook and Twitter, to Windows 8 and e-mail.Â
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But you are right. It is dangerous, no matter what the app is.Â
 @Rob C 503 I have no idea what it is, but it looks like a money maker like what you said. I just had to buy a new laptop with Windows 8 that 'forces' people to use a Microsoft e-mail address so it can be scanned and sold to the highest bidder - isn't this new paradigm grand??
There is no such thing as a laptop that forces you to have a Microsoft email address.Â
 @boned  @Rob C 503 Win 8 doesn't "force" you to use a Microsoft email address. You could have created, and still can, a local account to log in to your system with.
@boned ......I think it could possibly be dangerous in ways we can't imagine, boned !
 @Rob C 503  @boned And 13 yrs old are using it the most? Say it isn't so.