6 Adult Dating Apps Teens Are Using Too

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/blog/6-adult-dating-apps-teens-are-using-too

After School - Funny Anonymous School News for Confessions & Compliments

After School uses kids' Facebook profiles to verify they're students at a specific high school before granting access to the school's page within the app. From there, kids see images and posts created anonymously by other students or can create anonymous posts. The app was removed from the app store for a few hours after complaints from school administrators about bullying incidents, but it was relisted for age 17 and up with warnings about sexual content, language, drug references, and violence. Student-generated posts include frequent confession-style references (which come across more as bragging) to drugs, sex, and violence.

Amino - Communities, Chat, Forums, and Groups

Amino - Communities, Chat, Forums, and Groups is an app that lets users join online communities related to anime, gaming, books, and more. This app lets users explore all available Amino communities and create their own groups; there are also other community-specific apps from the same developer, such as Poké Amino. While the communities are predominantly positive, bad language, violent references, and sexual themes crop up throughout, making this a potentially iffy choice for young teens. Also, you can easily browse users and follow them, and it's not clear that users can opt out of such public searches.

Bookopolis

Bookopolis is a great site for kids to connect to readers and explore books they've already read or may like to read. The website tracks and promotes reading and writing through the use of badges and points, which can possibly engage even the most reluctant of readers. Though the site doesn't promote any violence, sex, inappropriate language, or substance abuse, the stories that are separated by grade level could feature varying levels of this content within the stories. Parents will like the ease in which their children will safely explore new titles in this interactive site; kids can't join the site without using an adult's email, which means that parents also can track their children's progress and interaction on this COPPA-compliant website.

Disney Mix

Disney Mix is a messaging app designed for tweens. Kids create an account with their age, birth date, first name, and parent's email address. They'll also need to create a username, which is used to log in, and an avatar name, which is what their friends see when messaging. When a kid creates an account or logs on to a different device, parents get an email notification. No parental approval is involved, but email includes a link to easily cancel the account; parents don't receive notifications of new friends or messages. To add a friend, kids must know the avatar's name. Language that may be even remotely offensive is censored and replaced with "- -" while the rest of the message is left intact.