Smartphone Apps that cause problems for your kids at school

If your child is among the 73 percent of teens who have access to a smartphone, you're well aware of the app obsession that can take over a brain and body in seconds. Multiply that by the average student population at your middle or high school, and you see the problem many schools are facing this back-to-school season. For teens, smartphones plus apps equal social networking. And where there's social networking, there's sure to be drama.

While a lot of social networking is harmless - and even beneficial - some apps are specifically designed to appeal to users' darker impulses. Confessionals, anonymous comments, incriminating photos, rumor-mongering - that sort of thing. Worse, some apps apply location services to this already combustible mix, connecting everyone in a school and magnifying problems like cyberbullying, gossip, and physical threats.

Keep these apps on your radar, and talk to your kids about responsible social networking:

• Yik Yak. This "location aware" social networking app lets users post "anything and everything" anonymously. The brief, Twitter-like comments and photos are distributed to any 500 people using Yik Yak closest to you geographically. Anonymous threats against schools and individual students have prompted many schools to ban the app, using the company's "geo
  
  fencing" guidelines to restrict communications in a certain area. 

• Ask.FM. This question-and-answer app lets kids pose queries and answer questions from other users. With questions like "am I pretty or ugly?," the confessional nature makes kids vulnerable to negative feedback. Bullying is a major concern, and Ask.FM has been cited as a factor in stories of teen suicide. In response to these problems, the company changed management and launched a robust safety center. Still, you have to wonder about an app that has a whole section just for law enforcement investigating criminal activity. 

• Snapchat. For seemingly consequence-free communication, you can't do better than the self-destructing messaging app Snapchat. The app has gained a reputation as a "sexting" app because outgoing (and incoming) pictures, videos, and texts aren't permanently stored on devices. Still, many third-party developers have created apps that let recipients save snaps from unsuspecting senders. One of the biggest problems with Snapchat is its popularity: One teacher complained of massive class disruption when the app released an upgrade during the school day. 

• Slingshot. Slingshot lets you send photos and 15 second videos to one friend, many, or all the contacts you’ve recently slinged with. Content is ephemeral and disappears after it’s viewed, though you can auto-save what you create. You can find friends through Facebook or your phone’s contacts, though the app uses a somewhat weak privacy-by-obscurity model where anyone with your username can sling to you. 

• Whatsapp. WhatsApp Messenger is a cross-platform mobile messaging app which allows you to exchange messages without having to pay for SMS. WhatsApp Messenger is available for iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Phone and Nokia and yes, those phones can all message each other! Because WhatsApp Messenger uses the same internet data plan that you use for email and web browsing, there is no cost to message and stay in touch with your friends.

• Whisper. Anyone can post an anonymous message to the service in the form of an image macro: text overlaid on a picture. When you open the app, you see six such images. Each one has a "secret" on it. You can respond to a message publicly or privately, choosing a public anonymous post or a private pseudonymous chat. Users don't have a public identity in the app. While they do have persistent handles, there's no way to contact them except *through* the messages they post

• Burn Note. Is an iOS and Android apps that limits the viewing area of messages to further protect them from getting screenshot by the recipient. While this might sound overly paranoid, The messages in Burn Note self-destruct using a timer that starts once the message is opened by the recipient. The service will take a guess at how long the reader will need to read it, or you can set the time yourself. Once the timer expires, your message is destroyed forever. You can send messages to other Burn Note users, email addresses or send a link to anyone on any platform.

Parents should learn about the these apps and familiarize themselves with them. You should have a conversation with your child about the risks of utilizing these apps. They should understand that they should not be used inappropriately, to bully, embarrass or to harm another.