Do You Know About The App VPN...YOU SHOULD!!!!

Staying ahead of social networking is certainly a challenge. You think you've got it under your belt and then WHAM you get hit with some new ingenious way that kids are outsmarting their parents.  VPN stands for Virtual Private Network. In its most basic terms it allows teens to get around all the Parental Controls I have been suggesting you use, making them able to use the apps you don't want them to use, and use them during the times you have blocked them from using if you've put time restrictions on through the parental controls. It allows them to access to Netflix, Hulu and other streaming sites no password needed anytime anywhere!. Damn those kids for being so smart!!!!Truthfully, it's pretty genius from a techie point of view, and certainly from a teen's point of view, but for parents it's an arch enemy!!!

How do you know if you teen is using a VPN. Here are a few ways to find out. On an iPhone if you look on your teen's phone you will see the VPN initials in upper left corner of their phone next to the cell signal thingy! On a droid swipe down on the home screen and there will be a notification that VPN is running. 

Also you can go the app store on your teen's iphone or google play on android.  In the app search engine put in VPN. Many options will be listed. If any of the apps say OPEN your teen has VPN up and running. If it says GET you're good, then it has not been downloaded! 

Funny story, last year I was at a school to do my presentation on Social Networking. Just before I got there they had discovered a big problem. This school had distributed Chrome Books to all their students, and had dutifully thought they had done a good job of blocking social networking sites and streaming sites, so that students would be using their chrome books at school solely for school related projects. Well don'tcha know those smart kids had VPN's running and were enjoying Netflix during lunch and study periods! I know this now, but last year, it seemed a mystery to everyone just how these kids were accessing these supposedly blocked sites. Thank you VPN.

Why is this important? Because as I have talked about many times too much time spent on technology is NOT a good thing for young developing brains. Parental controls are the only real way of controlling time and opportunity, the two things you as parents really have control over. VPN challenges that power. You still need to protect the very vulnerable mental health of your teen as they navigate this new stage of life.  

You have got to stay smarter than your teen!!! For more specific tech knowledge on VPNs go to protectyoungeyes.com and put VPN in their search engine.

Happy sleuthing!