How vulnerable Are Children In Today’s App Technology-Driven Internet World?
New Certified Messenging Chat App For Children Provides Safe Monitoring For Parents And Encourages Responsible Social Media Development
Summer is coming.
These are the words that children ages 6-17 dream of hearing everyday as they’re leaving school. Ten to fifteen years ago, summer meant baseball, bikes, and adventures outside with your friends. The recent changes in technology have also brought about changes in interest among younger individuals in our population. Today, summer means iPads, TV’s, computers, and video games. Technology has brought about more advanced innovations at a cheaper price. This allows for easier access to extremely advanced technology. Think for a second, when was the last time you saw a child on an iPad, a tween with an iPhone, or a teenager paying more attention to their phone than their surroundings. This means your children, and your neighbors children can work those new computers, navigate your complicated phone, and dazzle with online gaming faster than you could ever hope to.
With advancement in technology, comes advancement in vulnerability. Our society will always maintain a small population of predatory individuals who attempt and succeed to deceive and infiltrate the younger population’s chat rooms, video games, Facebooks and snap chats, luring out and sometimes damaging our youth. Technology is a great thing, but it can also be used as a tool for the misaligned.
While there are safeguards in place on almost all technology interaction programs, they mainly act as a limitation of liability for the provider. These safeguards are easily navigated by technologically advanced youth. For example, most sites require you to be at least 13 to sign up and only require you to enter your birthday. Most children, regardless of their technology based intelligence, understand what year you should be when signing up for a program and often just enter January 1st, 1980’s or 70’s and are completely accepted without any verification process.
A recent program, invented by a concerned father, called “Marimba Chat” creates a messaging app that is not only safe and secure for children but also encourages youth to communicate with actual sentences instead of just those annoying one word responses of “yes” or “Ok”. This new messaging app requires the individuals to be within 7-12 years of age. It also has independent verification and allows parents to monitor everything in real time. This app has even been certified by an independent program named kidSAFE who has approved the product to be in compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
Another advantage of this app, aside from keeping children shielded from making bad online decisions, is that it teaches children to correctly use social media. All too often children create, socialize, and expose too much online without drawing any ire from their parents. This app will let parents monitor and mold their child’s internet exposure, allowing for a responsible, calculated exposure to what is inevitably going to be a large part of the child’s future life.
In conclusion, your child is going to come face-to-face with technology whether you like it or not. Most likely, they’re already better on these devices than you are. Why not ensure children are being safe, smart, and responsible by monitoring their interactions through a certified app that guards their safety and development.
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Attorney Robert “Chip” Mues has been focusing his legal practice throughout Southwest Ohio primarily in divorce and family law matters since 1978. Chip is passionate about family law and has proudly published the Ohio Family Law Blog since 2007. In addition, he is the managing partner of Holzfaster, Cecil, McKnight & Mues. To learn more about him or the law firm, visit the firm’s website at www.hcmmlaw.com. Appointments are available in person, over the phone or by Zoom. Call us at 937 293-2141.
