How to Monitor Your Child’s Social Media and Stay Unnoticed
Parents should be aware that 93% of young people between the ages of 14 and 22 use social media daily. Mothers and dads usually do not know, what is happening to their children on the internet, though, they better should. Bullying, drug dealing, and prostitution are completely uncontrollable online. That is why it is so important to know what social media monitoring tools to choose and how to use them.
Why Should Parents Monitor Their Child’s Social Media Even If the Latter Are Against This?
Social media monitoring is a term gaining more and more popularity nowadays: people have begun to understand that it is of great importance. Unfortunately, children cannot always understand what is black and white. On the other hand, arguing with parents is often a kind of personal challenge for them.
And this is when parental control apps come to save the day. They allow parents to know whom their child talks to, where they go and what they plan to do, staying unnoticed and avoiding daily family scandals, killing two birds with one stone.
Pros and Cons of Parents Monitoring Social Media from the Parental Point of View
There are many cons of parents monitoring social media. It might be shocking, but 37% of teens have been bullied online and had to live with such emotional traumas, not getting any support from their relatives. Knowing, what is going on in their child’s life, parents will be able to avoid terrible accidents in the future and give their kids the help they really need.
One more positive moment is that by monitoring social media activity, parents will always know of some shady personalities contacting their children and will be able to block the undesirable account. Unfortunately, the police and government do not have control over the network, which is why illegal businesses, such as drug dealing and sexual trafficking, have moved there.
5 Best Apps to Monitor Child’s Social Media
To help you enhance the level of cyber security in your house and save a bunch of time, we have prepared a list of the 5 best applications to monitor your child’s social media. All of them have features that might be pretty useful, so read the review and choose the one you like the most.
uMobix – the Best App to Monitor Child’s Internet Life
Social media monitoring apps for parents can be taken as a personal offense by children, especially teenagers. That is why it is crucial to do that secretly, not giving your children any chance to suspect something. uMobix allows you to:
- read messages on all social media;
- see pictures and listen to the audio files sent;
- stay hidden behind the “curtain”.
Some might say that it is out of the parents’ rights, that it is an intrusion into private life; well, true, it might be. But this argument would be reasonable only when government and security organizations take control of all the shady businesses on the internet. Before that, the safety of their kids is only in the parents’ hands.
uMobix gives parents a chance to install it on the iPhone remotely via iCloud. Unfortunately, the Android owners are not so lucky, as they need to get the device in their hands, but anyway, the result is worth the effort.
Qustodio – a Revolutionary Software to Stay Up to Date
This app allows you to monitor your child’s social media and not only:
- set gaming time limits;
- send notifications and reminders about the work to be done;
- check the location.
These are only some of the most used features of Qustodio. It is also worth mentioning that of all social monitoring apps for parents, it is the only one that supports not only iOS and Android but also Kindle, Windows, and ChromeOS. It can also be used not only by parents monitoring social media but also by schools to observe and maintain the study process. Considering the new education study space being developed by Google with the support of ChromeOS, Qustodio may occupy a huge niche in the market.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to install Qustodio without getting the accounts of the target users, but if you are a parent, you still should know this information, so it won’t be an issue for you.
iKeyMonitor – a Free Parental Control App
If you are looking for an app to monitor child’s social media and do not want to pay for it, at least at the beginning, iKeyMonitor is a good choice for you. It has a free version that offers you:
- phone calls and SMS tracker;
- location tracker;
- Wi-Fi tracker;
and some other minor functions. However, to get access to social networks, messengers, media, and all other information that might be of interest to you – an additional package should be purchased. It price starts from $16.66, depending on the features included.
Creating a customizable list of features directly influencing the price is a great idea. Say, you do not need the QQ and Wechat trackers as you live in Europe – simply exclude them from the package and get a slightly lower price. You may even include the “Listen to Surroundings” feature to know what is going on around your kid if you want.
Norton Family – Try Now, Pay Later
This application is focused on creating a proper environment for your child to study and helps them to maintain the real/digital life balance. If you open the website, you will see an offer to start a free 30-day trial. It is a great decision to attract more users and give them a chance to try all the features, among which there are:
- Internet filter;
- social media monitoring;
- location tracker.
As a parent, you can monitor child’s social media activity without any problems using Norton Family. The developers made their software to monitor child’s social media apps on computer. How many parents were cheated by their kids who pressed alt+tab to hide their WhatsApp or Facebook and opened PowerPoint? Time to end this!
Should you monitor your child’s social media, you can also sign up for email activity reports. Accessing the dashboard is not always convenient, and email alerts can be helpful.
Bark – Social Media Monitoring App for Parents Who Care
Bark Technologies decided that the best app to monitor child’s text and social media activity is not an app. Well, they actually have an app with a standard set of features, among which:
- screen time tracker;
- application tracker, including YouTube, games, and all social networks;
- the alert system, activated by special word triggers.
But these guys decided to move further and decided that the best way to monitor your child’s social media is to create a whole device for this. Bark Phone, a gadget that includes all the features from the app, is expected in November and can be a great choice for a birthday gift to your child.
As for the application, there are two subscription plans available: Junior, for $5/month, with limited functionality, and Premium – for $14/month, which gives you access to all the functions. As usually, by choosing an annual plan, you will save some money. Not sure – try a free weekly demo!
Conclusion
If you want to use a Facebook messenger spy app without target phone in your hands and monitor your child’s activity in any other social network – the internet is full of different options. But not all of them are as reliable and trusted as the applications we listed here. If you really care about your child’s digital safety – do not hesitate; only digital weapon works well in the digital world!
Research Snipers is currently covering all technology news including Google, Apple, Android, Xiaomi, Huawei, Samsung News, and More. Research Snipers has decade of experience in breaking technology news, covering latest trends in tech news, and recent developments.
