Recent research suggests that over 93% of teenagers use social media, and about 70% of those teenagers are addicted to social media, and use it daily. Kids who use social media have unlimited access to all kinds of reels. Some of these reels contain nude images, graphics and arts that are inappropriate and unsuitable for a child’s consumption.
In this blog, we will discuss the importance of keeping your child away from nude reels and other inappropriate contents. As you’ve imagined, these nude reels hold no benefit to kids and should not be found on a child’s device or feature in their interaction.
We’ll also walk you through the steps you can take to ensure that these nude reels stop appearing on your kid’s phone screen. Then, let’s learn it together.
What are nude Reels?
Generally, reels appear on TikTok and Instagram, and are known to be short, concise, informative or entertaining. So, nude reels are short video clips showcasing sensuality through unfiltered contents, erotic arts and graphics. Most times, social media algorithms expose kids to these nude reels unintentionally. Platforms like TikTok and Instagram open their doors to all users to upload and watch all kinds of reels. Whenever an uploader masters and uses the right keyword, they reach a lot of audience. That makes it difficult for younger viewers to avoid, unless some kind of restriction is put in place.
Why are nude Reels dangerous for kids?
Children as young as seven, eight, who have access to the internet and social media can be exposed to nude reels. Through suggested feeds or even ads. This exposure poses significant short and long term effect on kids, and they include:
Psychological impact
– Early exposure to explicit content can lead to confusion about sexual practices.
– Negatively shape kids perceptions of intimacy.
– Cause anxiety about sex and sexual relationships.
– A child who’s exposed to nude reels may have a false view on physical appearances, and might start to feel inadequate about their own bodies.
– Nude reels blur lines between right and wrong sexual practices, real and unreal. Continued exposure to nude reels causes these unhealthy sexual thoughts to build up in the mind of your kids. Over time, their views and sexual expectations become unrealistic and even aggressive.
Negatively impact behavior
- Exposure to nude reels can cause kids to see sexual violence as a norm, because their views about sex and intimacy were formed through these short clips that were never meant to be a form of sex education.
- They start to see people, especially ladies as objects of sexual pleasure, and this reflects in their words and interaction.
- Kids may imitate the contents of these nude reels without knowing the implication. Also, nude reels are dangerous to kids because they lower a child’s ability to recognize inappropriate behaviors and situations.
- Additionally, the areas of social media where these nude reels can be accessed and watched are often filled with potential online predators, and other kids with equally warped views on sex. From the comment section of these nude reels, online predators can reach your kids via direct messaging, and this is dangerous, both to the kid’s physical and mental health.
Research shows that people who were exposed to sexual contents, including nude reels early in life, have early sex debut, practice unsafe sex and believe it’s normal to keep multiple sexual partners.
As a parent, understanding that there are risks associated with exposure to nude reels is the first step towards protecting your kid.
For both protective and preventive uses, FlashGet Kids can help you keep nude reels away from your child’s screen.
How FlashGet Kids app blocks nude reels and inappropriate content
This parental control app is well equipped with every feature needed to keep your child safe from nude reels and their negative effects. It also puts your mind at ease, helping your child enjoy age-appropriate social media contents. Most FlashGet Kids features help you filter reels with sexual contents, monitor the keywords and the video descriptions.
These features are:
Keyword detection:
Here, you can set up keywords that you consider inappropriate and do not wish to see on your child’s screen. For this purpose, keywords like nudes, sex, etc, can be set up. Whenever these words appear in your child’s reels, or even in their online conversations, you’re immediately alerted.
Notifications
What better way to monitor your child’s online activities than by gaining access to all of their notifications? FlashGet Kids lets you view your child’s app and text message notification the second your child receives them. You can immediately take action, if any of these notifications calls for concern.
App Blocker
As the name implies, this FlashGet Kids feature lets you block your kid’s access to certain apps that may expose them to nude reels.
Screen Time
Guiding your kid to spend less time on the screen can make monitoring online interaction easier for you, as a parent. FlashGet Kids allows you to set a time limit or totally restrict your kid from using the screen, at a particular moment, time, or duration.
Usage Report
With this, you can monitor your child’s daily social media app usage, and even their call logs. You’re also shown the daily notifications on a particular app throughout a day. Using this feature, your child’s online activities, who they’re calling, chatting with and their reel suggestions become an open book.
Aside from having access to these features of FlashGet Kids, there’s also a need to customize them and maximize their potential, and get the best results.
Steps to customize filters to block nude reels:
With FlashGet Kids, parents can set specific filters within the app to block nude reels and other adult-themed content. One of such filter is the keyword detection:
- To use this feature, click on the device’s activity.
- From the given options, then select keyword detection.
- Enable detection.
After enabling keyword detection, select the social media app for which you’d like to manage its keywords.
Lastly, input the keyword that you’d to receive an alert for if it ever features in your kid’s online activities and interaction. In this case, nude.
Real-Time Protection by FlashGet Kids
By letting you monitor contents in real-time, FlashGet Kids helps prevent exposure to inappropriate videos on Instagram, TikTok, and similar platforms, and ensure safer online experience for kids.
Customizing social media safety for your child
Keeping your child safe online goes beyond monitoring their phone activities, and filtering certain keywords, there’s also need to put up walls that prevent nude reels from making it into their phone in the first place.
Here are steps to enhance safety on social media:
Enable safe browsing modes
All browsers support safe browsing experiences for kids and other individuals. Overall, enabling safe browsing mode helps restrict access to adult content, filter explicit videos and pictures, and ensure a safer browsing environment for your kids.
These safe browsing modes are often found in settings and can be enabled with just one click.
Configure FlashGet Kids App to monitor your child’s social media use
Screen mirroring is a FlashGet Kids feature that displays the content of your kid’s screen on yours, in real time. It’s like sitting in the front row of your child’s screen activities, seeing everything as they happen. Even notification, image, video, texts, will be shown to you in real time. A combination of this feature and other FlashGet Kids features listed above help parents observe their child’s social media interactions and usage.
Educating your child on safe social media practices
The fact still remains that an informed child is an empowered one. Information about the dangers of some social media habits and practices should not be kept away from kids. Explain what nude reels are, how to identify them, and teach your kids to stay away.
Also, we consider it important for parents to teach kids about inappropriate conversations from strangers online. You, as a parent, should encourage these kids to report these conversations so you can intervene.
Teaching digital safety and building healthy online habits
To make the online environment healthier for your kids is not a goal that can be achieved in one day. It’s a continuous process of teaching and learning. Below, we’ve shared ways you can help your kids build healthy online habits:
- Screen time management: Social media addiction is real. So, we recommend you set a limit on how much time your kid can spend on their screen daily. Sometimes, during holidays, dinner, or night time, you can completely take their mobile devices from them and encourage them to engage in face to face interaction.
Parents should know that nude reels have harmful effects: lower self-esteem, cause kids to see unhealthy sexual behavior as normal, make it seem like it’s okay to objectify others, etc.
So, teach your kids that it’s not okay to engage in conversations about sex with strangers they met online. Predators lurk around the corners of social media apps.
Conclusion
In conclusion, from every word written above, it can be deduced that adult-themed contents will continue to exist on social media. Brands and individuals use social media as a tool to market whatever they wish, including nude and related content. Overall, as a parent, it becomes your responsibility to keep your child away from inappropriate contents. Even kids as young as eight are not exempted from this content. The algorithm can easily be manipulated by the uploaders, causing the nude reels to be shown to all and sundry.
So, to completely monitor your child’s screen, filter and block nude reels from showing on their screen and effectively manage kids screen time, FlashGet Kids has a set of features that will help you achieve that. It’s a parental control app designed to keep track of your kid’s online activity and protect them from harm.
