Smart phone activity another area for parents to monitor

If your child does not already have a smart phone, chances are he or she will be ask­ing for one. It is esti­mated there are more than 2.4 bil­lion smart phones being used world­wide and the Apple iPhone and Motorola Android seem to be the most pop­u­lar for teens. Smart phones have changed the way we con­sume infor­ma­tion with the many appli­ca­tions or “apps,” as we know them, that can be down­loaded onto the phone.

The pop­u­lar­ity of apps has led to a grow­ing prof­itable mar­ket for soft­ware com­pa­nies. Some apps can be down­loaded for free while oth­ers can cost from 99 cents to sev­eral dol­lars to down­load. Teens love apps and they are the moti­va­tion to move up from a reg­u­lar cell phone to the smart phone.

Usu­ally when we think of apps, we think of the pop­u­lar game “Angry Birds” or one that can help us locate the near­est Star­bucks or McDonald’s or maybe allows us to check the weather fore­cast. The Apple Com­pany reported in fall 2009 that it had reached the 2 bil­lion mark for its iPhone apps. Do the math and you will see that apps are a bil­lion dol­lar indus­try. Most sta­tis­tics show that the inter­net based pornog­ra­phy indus­try is a 3 bil­lion dol­lar indus­try and with so many apps being down­loaded, the porn indus­try has seen another way to make even more money.

Although the Apple Com­pany does not have an actual app for pornog­ra­phy, Android has an app called “MiKandi,” pro­nounced “My Candy.” MiKandi is a third-party site that is pri­mar­ily designed to work on Android phones; how­ever, some iPhone users have dis­cov­ered a way to down­load the app on iPhones. MiKandi is actu­ally an app that allows adult app devel­op­ers a venue to dis­trib­ute their apps. Accord­ing to MiKandi, “as long as it’s legal, the sky’s the limit.”

Most Inter­net pornog­ra­phy stud­ies indi­cate it is graphic, degrad­ing and vio­lent, and pro­motes unhealthy sex­ual behav­ior. Early expo­sure to pornog­ra­phy can lead ado­les­cents into ear­lier sex­ual activ­ity and can also cause ado­les­cents to have an unre­al­is­tic view of what is “nor­mal” behav­ior in a relationship.

Most par­ents are mon­i­tor­ing their children’s activ­i­ties on the home com­puter and should be doing the same with smart phones. Par­ents need to keep in mind that the smart phone is a hand­held com­puter with instant access to the inter­net and the many apps down­loaded to the phone. Check the apps your chil­dren have down­loaded and con­tinue mon­i­tor­ing their smart phone activ­ity, and help keep our kids safe.

Keep­ing Our Kids Safe is brought to by the Delaware Police Depart­ment and School resource Offi­cer Rod Glazer.