Dangers of FaceTime for Teens

FaceTime is an app on Apple products such as iPhones and iPads that allows users to video chat with other users. This can be fantastic for keeping in touch with friends and family far away, to use for business meetings with people who can't be in the same room, and to show your best friend the new curtains in your dining room. But it also has some dangers for the younger set.

  1. Distraction From Schoolwork

    • With the ease of being able to download FaceTime on a phone, tablet or computer, it's simple for teens to use it frequently to talk to their friends or love interests. This can take away from time that teens should be doing homework or doing extracurricular activities.

    Adult Activities

    • Video chat can be used for many innocuous purposes, but it's very nature means it can be used for activities you might not want your teen doing. Sexting can be taken to a new level when you can video-chat while doing it, and it's possible that these videos or stills taken during video chat could come back to haunt your teen years later. Security-FAQs.com points out that meeting people online and video-chatting could expose your teen to predators.

    Cyberbullying

    • Every avenue of contact can create new ways for your teen to be bullied. Instead of having to bully in person or on the phone, bullies can use texting to harass or threaten during a video chat on FaceTime. Of course, your teen can always disconnect, but it gives bullies one more way to cause trouble for other kids.

    Radiation

    • HealthyChild.org points out that the safety of cell phones as far as radiation is concerned is an issue. Evidence suggests a correlation between frequent, prolonged cell phone use and brain cancer. Also, it's four to five times more likely to develop a disease after a decade of frequent use, according to HealthyChild. If your teen is using FaceTime on her cell phone for hours a day, she could be exposing herself to radiation. While it's not as much of direct contact as talking on the phone -- your teen would need to hold the phone away from her face to see the screen -- it still is potentially riskier than having the phone across the room or in a book bag.

    Missing Out on Family Time

    • If your teen is enthralled by FaceTime, he might not be spending time with you. Time spent in his room video-chatting with his football buddies is time that he's not telling you about his day, playing a game with his little sister, or going for a ride with his dad. It can be hard to tear teens away from favorite electronics and when he's into an app such as FaceTime, it can be even harder.

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