‘Aaaarghhh really’ in a ‘OMG voice’ I hear worried parents say. It appears a new App (now available on iOS and Android) allows Snapchat & Instagram users to find new ‘friends’.
Let’s face it, when it comes to trying to find friends on Snapchat – it can be a little difficult. I mean you can add from contacts list or from apps such as Ghostcodes, (which allows you to find people to follow on Snapchat by downloading their Snapcode and adding them as a friend). But it is an app in which adding friends isn’t as easy as with facebook and the like.
Enter Yellow. A new App which not only makes it easier to find friends on Snapchat but also automatically adds your matches to your Snapchat contacts. Users choose who to chat to and share from photographs, Yellow enables you to connect to Snapchat and use the swipe left or right principle from dating app Tinder – so when Yellow is connected to Snapchat it is essentially a ‘Tinder for Teens’.
Age restriction is officially 17+, but that wont stop any self respecting young social media user.
Oh yeah and Yellow boasts the ability to join a community of 1,000,000 people around the world.
The idea behind the app is that it matches users thereby gaining access to a huge Snapchat market – of young users.
The App has already started to gain popularity amongst teenagers. According to one student in a recent article in The Limerick Leader it’s being used to swap nude and semi-nude pics. ‘People would send nudes and underwear pictures, boys and girls both – it’s mostly used to text and get pictures from each other’ she said.
She added that it’s not just for meeting ‘friends’ but is being used to ‘flirt with people from around the country and even further afield’. So two issues here, peer pressure to send pictures and adult opportunists.
Signing up for App has been made ultra simple. To register it asks for your mobile number and once verified it wants your name, birthday, sex and asks ‘Are you looking for Boys, Girls or Both?’
Once registration is complete Yellow asks if you want to meet people nearby.
On a general note with apps..
There is no doubt that we live in a world in which the social media landscape is changing on a daily basis, with a myriad of new apps launching constantly, posing real dangers to our children and young people. It’s important for parents to become more ‘digitally’ informed and start to set some boundaries and restrictions for children and young people, just like we do offline.
They can’t un-see things and they cant ‘un-experience them’.
Most importantly children and young people need to be educated, informed, resilient and motivated to protect themselves.
Schools, please don’t make this a tick box exercise. Get help from sources or organizations you trust, who have impact and who add value with relevant up to date information, delivered in a way that engages your students. This is one of the most important issues for young people of this generation to find out more about my engaging School Student Assemblies & Parent Workshops please click here
Posted By Wayne Denner
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