If you have teens and/or young kids, it’s an almost certainty they have a smartphone. As it stands today, 80% of kids have a cell phone, and these devices are having a major impact on kids’ lives. With today’s tech savvy teens and young kids, having a smartphone has become the norm, and living without their phone is just unthinkable. Today, kids view their smartphone as a key to improving their social life. Recent studies have shown that almost half of US kids say that their ‘social life’ would suffer severely or end without their smartphone. With the importance of their smartphone to kids, parents are starting to find out just how much kids are using their smartphone and the impact it has.
Impact of Kids’ Smartphone
With the impact of smartphone usage reigning so heavily on kids psyche, parents wonder just what they are doing on the phone, and if what they are doing is safe. Half of kids asked said their phone has become their primary form of entertainment. Not only are kids using their smartphone for talking and texting, now kids are using their smartphone for activities like games, instant messaging, photos/videos, and most importantly, social networking.
Social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. give kids a way of communicating with their world in a way that reflects their own personality and lifestyle. New smartphone apps add an ease and convenience for kids to use these while they are on the go, so they can still check in and stay informed of the newest current events. Unfortunately for kids, while they are simply trying to express themselves and stay current, there are dangerous individuals patiently waiting to pounce on the vulnerabilities.
Another concern for parents about their kids’ smartphone activities is the popular yet dangerous ‘sexting’ trend, using their smartphone to share explicit photos/videos of themselves or others through text messages, emails, and uploading to websites. This alarming growing trend is having an impact on many kids around the world. Most kids participate in this activity just to ‘fit in’, but don’t realize the consequences that come with this. With the click of a button, once they send/upload, it is free for the world to see and can come back to have life lasting effects. This, along with many other concerns, leads parents to search for new and creative ways of tracking kids and their smartphone usage.
Tracking Smartphone Activities
With excessive use of their smartphone, tracking teens’ activities has become a high priority for parents. The most basic attempt at tracking their smartphone activities by physically going through their phone is simply insufficient, as tech savvy teens are smart enough to simply delete the history to cover their tracks. One of the best and most efficient ways of tracking their activities is installing smartphone tracking software onto the phone. Tracking software such as Mobile Spy is leading the way with cutting edge software/service to keep track of what is going on in their lives.
Mobile Spy child smartphone tracking software has innovative features and options that allow parents to view their child’s call log history, text messages, web history, and photos/videos taken by the phone. This software makes it easier for parents to know where their children are with its GPS tracking feature. Using the GPS signal of the monitored device, this tracking software will give parents GPS coordinates of where they are along with a link to a map for tracking their exact location. As smartphones increase in popularity and use, tracking kids and their smartphone activities is becoming a necessity. It is best for parents to start tracking today, before things get out of hand.
