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Popular Apps Students Are Using
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Because apps change often, this is only a partial list of popular apps among students. Not all of these apps are used in negative ways, but parents should be aware of apps their kids are using and how they are used.
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After School
An anonymous user app, usually with explicit content. Although pulled from the Apple App Store, After School already has students using it. This app has potential danger because it allows anyone to "be verified" as a student at a school.
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Ask.fm
A social networking app that allows users to ask and answer questions anonymously. Answers can be in text or video format, and users can browse others' profiles with the option of submitting questions directly to them.
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Blendr
A flirting app (with no authentication requirements) used to meet people through GPS location services. Users can send messages, photos and videos and rate other users.
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Burn Book
Anonymous user app that allows students to post about various topics. The app can be localized yet allow you to see other area schools.
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Calculator%
This password-protected photo app allows students to hide photos and videos behind an innocent-looking calculator app.
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Down
An app that allows users to categorize their Facebook friends as people they do or don't want to hang out with.
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Instagram
An app that allows users to upload or take photos and edit them to be posted on other social networks and shared with the Instagram community. Users can knowingly -- and sometimes unknowingly -- tag the location where the photo was taken (geotagging).
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Omegle
An app mainly used for video chatting. Chat participants are identified only as "you" and "stranger." Users may link to their Facebook account to find chat partners with similar interests.
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Poof
This app allows users to make other apps "disappear" on their phone. Users can hide any app they don't want others to see. Although no longer available for download, this app already has students using it.
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Secret
Anonymous app that allows users to post images and innermost thoughts. Users like and interact with the anonymous posts, which spread throughout the Secret community.
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Snapchat
This app allows users to send images -- including explicit content -- to one another, with the images disappearing shortly afterward. Although users believe images are gone, Shapchat has been hacked, affecting millions of users.
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Streetchat
An unmoderated, anonymous image board that uses geo-location to connect users with others at the same school. Most pictures depict partying and sexual innuendo, and some are overtly racist and sexist. Bullying is always a concern with anonymous messaging and posting, and since Streetchat is local, the bullying can be targeted to the specific school audience.
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TBH
TBH stands for “to be honest”, and the tbh app is a social networking platform where users anonymously answer questions/polls about their classmates. Even though the questions/polls are approved by the developers, tbh can still promote bullying and make it easier for students to become a target.
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Tinder
A dating app that pulls information from users' Facebook profiles. Users can rate profiles and find potential dates via GPS location tracking.
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Yik Yak
This all-text app features gossip and can be localized. It is similar to Twitter and Reddit because of its social bookmarking aspect.
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YouNow
A live video streaming app. YouNow clearly forbids nudity, sexual content, and bullying in its guidelines, but there's no promise of oversight. Profanity is prevalent.
One anonymous teen's review of an app:
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"Almost all of the 7th and 8th grade students [at my school] use this app. But because of people using their anonymousity [sic] for evil, rumors have been spread, secrets have been told, and lives have been ruined. I am begging you, please either take off the anonymous option or take down this app altogether. Please. All this has done is create drama, enemies, and rumors -- some even towards me. I am sick of being a target, I am sick of being humiliated, and most of all I am sick of anonymously being told terrible things about myself."