A recent report by DCU (Dublin City University) on the Yubo app, dubbed ‘Tinder for Teens’ due to its swipe left feature to instantly connect with other users – has indicated that 15 year olds are the age group most unconcerned about privacy and most likely to share their private details in lieu of gaining followers.
Yubo (formerly ‘Yellow’) now has 15M users who
post 3M messages per day. 60 % of the
app’s users are aged between 13-16 yrs with 40% aged 16-17. Almost one third of its users are 15 year
olds.
How it works
Yubo is a location based app, which allows you to live-stream chat and video in one to ones and in groups.
Yubo enables you to link and create
‘friendships’ by using a Swipe Left feature.
The app encourages users to use emojii’s to
describe themselves.
What’s Happening on the App
65% of users use the emojiis. Of the 8 most used, half have a sexual
meaning. These include emojiis of liquid
(bodily fluids), fire (hot/sexiness) and a tongue (oral sex).
Users are embedding their username and
Snapchat codes in their bio or profiles.
Users are sharing their location.
Yubo Safety Update
Recently Yubo has removed the feature allowing
you to connect to Instagram and Snapchat.
Despite this the sharing of private content is still a concern on this
app due to teenagers embedding their username and Snapchat codes in their bio
or profiles. So that information is
readily available to all users regardless of matching or swiping. As well as that – over 80% had integrated
their Instagram profiles anyway.
Liam Challenor of the Anti-Bullying Centre at DCU said that parents needed to be aware of their child’s activity on the app. Check out our recent blog on Yubo Safety Updates
Lastly
15 year olds pushing boundaries and taking
risks is not news to parents. We know
this is a vulnerable age between childhood and adulthood. However, Yubo and
other apps like it, enable risk- taking behaviour online and make connecting to
strangers even easier via it’s features.
Remind your teenager of the risks of ‘friendships’ with strangers
online.
Supporting you in everyday online life,
Wayne
>> Read the full article at waynedenner.com
Wayne Denner is a speaker, author and expert on Online Reputation and Wellbeing. Wayne helps young people protect and improve their digital presence. Visit waynedenner.com for more information.
