Do you know what Streaks are? Snapchat has something they call Snapstreaks that count the consecutive days you send a Snap to the same person. My daughter has some Snapstreaks that are more than 200 days long. To keep a "streak" going both people must send a Snap back-and-forth within 24 hours.
I've learned from the teens I've talked to that Snapstreaks don't necessarily signify a deep or special relationship. The number of "streaks" your kids have going at any one time may surprise you. This happened to me. Tessa (my daughter) and I were headed out on a week-long trip together and I asked that she leave her cellphone at home so as to mitigate some of the tension that sometimes arises between us around the phone. Tessa's first response was to be concerned about her "streaks" — it turns out she had 40 Snapstreaks going. I was shocked. I wondered how she had the time to communicate individually with 40 different people every day. So we discussed it and in fact, she informed me that she sends a Snap to all 40 people at once, sort of like a cc. My co-producer's 17-year-old has 5 Snapstreaks going and when she asked him if he just sends them all the same one, he said no, that he likes to send a personal Snap to each of his 5 friends. What some kids do when they are forced to part with their phones is they give a friend their Snapchat password to have them keep their "streaks" going. Tessa and I had a nice, calm discussion about all this and in the end, she easily agreed to leave her phone at home.
a snap picture from co-producer Lisa Tabb's teen daughter
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Do you know what Streaks are? Snapchat has something they call Snapstreaks that count the consecutive days you send a Snap to the same person. My daughter has some Snapstreaks that are more than 200 days long. To keep a "streak" going both people must send a Snap back-and-forth within 24 hours.
I've learned from the teens I've talked to that Snapstreaks don't necessarily signify a deep or special relationship. The number of "streaks" your kids have going at any one time may surprise you. This happened to me. Tessa (my daughter) and I were headed out on a week-long trip together and I asked that she leave her cellphone at home so as to mitigate some of the tension that sometimes arises between us around the phone. Tessa's first response was to be concerned about her "streaks" — it turns out she had 40 Snapstreaks going. I was shocked. I wondered how she had the time to communicate individually with 40 different people every day. So we discussed it and in fact, she informed me that she sends a Snap to all 40 people at once, sort of like a cc. My co-producer's 17-year-old has 5 Snapstreaks going and when she asked him if he just sends them all the same one, he said no, that he likes to send a personal Snap to each of his 5 friends. What some kids do when they are forced to part with their phones is they give a friend their Snapchat password to have them keep their "streaks" going. Tessa and I had a nice, calm discussion about all this and in the end, she easily agreed to leave her phone at home.
a snap picture from co-producer Lisa Tabb's teen daughter
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Do you know what Streaks are? Snapchat has something they call Snapstreaks that count the consecutive days you send a Snap to the same person. My daughter has some Snapstreaks that are more than 200 days long. To keep a "streak" going both people must send a Snap back-and-forth within 24 hours.
I've learned from the teens I've talked to that Snapstreaks don't necessarily signify a deep or special relationship. The number of "streaks" your kids have going at any one time may surprise you. This happened to me. Tessa (my daughter) and I were headed out on a week-long trip together and I asked that she leave her cellphone at home so as to mitigate some of the tension that sometimes arises between us around the phone. Tessa's first response was to be concerned about her "streaks" — it turns out she had 40 Snapstreaks going. I was shocked. I wondered how she had the time to communicate individually with 40 different people every day. So we discussed it and in fact, she informed me that she sends a Snap to all 40 people at once, sort of like a cc. My co-producer's 17-year-old has 5 Snapstreaks going and when she asked him if he just sends them all the same one, he said no, that he likes to send a personal Snap to each of his 5 friends. What some kids do when they are forced to part with their phones is they give a friend their Snapchat password to have them keep their "streaks" going. Tessa and I had a nice, calm discussion about all this and in the end, she easily agreed to leave her phone at home.
a snap picture from co-producer Lisa Tabb's teen daughter
The first of more than a thousand school district lawsuits against TikTok, Snapchat, Meta, and YouTube has settled, with a small Kentucky district awarded $27 million. Discovery records made public showed the companies designed to reach kids during the school day, from in-class alerts to keeping notifications on against safety teams' advice, while research finds students spend about 1.5 hours of a 6.5-hour school day on their phones.
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The first of 1,200+ school district lawsuits against social media companies just settled, with Meta, YouTube, Snap, and TikTok all paying out rather than face a jury. Meta points to its Teen Accounts feature as proof of safety, but a study by former Meta safety lead Arturo Bejar found only 8 of 47 advertised features actually work as described.
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Teen psychologist Lisa Damour breaks down three manipulative tactics online games and apps use to push kids into spending: algorithms that time pitches to when kids are tired or bored, scarcity tactics like countdown timers that trigger impulse buys, and in-app currencies (gems, coins, tokens) designed to disguise real dollar costs. Research shows teens resist these tactics better once they understand them.
READ MORE >for more like this, DR. DELANEY RUSTON'S NEW BOOK, PARENTING IN THE SCREEN AGE, IS THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE FOR TODAY’S PARENTS. WITH INSIGHTS ON SCREEN TIME FROM RESEARCHERS, INPUT FROM KIDS & TEENS, THIS BOOK IS PACKED WITH SOLUTIONS FOR HOW TO START AND SUSTAIN PRODUCTIVE FAMILY TALKS ABOUT TECHNOLOGY AND IT’S IMPACT ON OUR MENTAL WELLBEING.
