Is Lemon8 Safe for Kids? 2024 Full Review
Lemon8 is a social media app launched by ByteDance in 2020, focusing on lifestyle sharing. As of April 2024, it has been downloaded over 16 million times in the U.S., with more than 4.25 million active users.
Despite its popularity among young people, Lemon8 has raised concerns about child safety. Parents and experts question whether its content regulation and data privacy measures are adequate, especially for minors.
In this blog, we will explore whether Lemon8 is safe for kids and provide suggestions to help parents better manage their children's social media use.
1. What Is Lemon8?
Lemon8 is a social media platform that combines elements of Instagram, Pinterest, and TikTok. It features swipeable photo collections like Instagram and TikTok-style videos, allowing users to add text such as price tags or labels to photo posts. The app focuses on sharing and exploring photos and videos, with trending topics like food, fashion, beauty, travel, and wellness.
Launched in the US and UK in 2023, Lemon8 quickly became the most downloaded social media app on Google Play, with over 5 million downloads. While it is popular among women aged 22 to 26, many minors also use the app, raising concerns about its suitability for younger users.
2. Is Lemon8 Safe for Kids?
"Is Lemon8 Safe for my kids?"
The answer is No. Lemon8 poses several issues for minors. The platform is saturated with influencer ads that blend with organic content, leading to confusion and potential exploitation. Additionally, the focus on curated aesthetics over real-life experiences pressures young users to emulate idealized content, fostering materialistic values and unrealistic expectations that impact their self-worth.
The following will explore how Lemon8 unconsciously influences minors in various ways:
Inappropriate Content for Teenagers
Lemon8 offers limited protection against targeted promotional and explicit content. The lack of transparency about promotional material can exploit impressionable teenagers. While the platform's content is mostly inspirational, seemingly harmless fun can significantly impact a teenager's mind. Although the app prohibits explicit or violent content, exceptions are made for educational, artistic, documentary, and scientific images.
Age Verification Bypass
A major concern with Lemon8 is the ease with which teenagers can bypass age verification. The app requires users to be 18 or older, but younger users can simply enter a false birth date to gain access.
Addiction Potential
Like any other social media platform, Lemon8 is addictive. Social media has modified human connection, reducing the extensive effort to interact and form social bonds. The body rewards every sense of belonging, no matter how superficial, by activating the reward pathway.
Social media has amplified this activation by impacting dopamine release. It triggers the frequency and magnitude of dopamine release through compulsive use and overconsumption of online content. Lemon8 is particularly addictive because of the perfectly curated content it showcases. It distorts the harshness of reality, leaving teens discontented with their mundane lives, appearance, and possessions.
User Data Collection
ByteDance applies similar data practices on Lemon8 as it does on TikTok. Children may not be aware of the extent of data access the app has. Apps often use this data to push advertisements and influencer content based on user activity and age, tracking phone data to create targeted advertising campaigns.
Content Filter and Security Settings
Lemon8 lacks privacy settings, meaning all accounts are public. Anyone can access your teenager's content, and your child can access all published data. Designed for adults who can differentiate between reality and social media, Lemon8 requires extra caution for minors due to risks of addiction, exploitation, and exposure to inappropriate content.
3. Tips for Parents
As a parent or guardian, ensuring your child's safety online should be your top priority, regardless of the measures enforced by social media platforms. Here are proven ways to enhance your child's online safety:
Manage Screen Time: Control how long your child stays online by setting limits on their device usage.
Collaborate on Social Accounts: Instead of allowing your young child to manage an account alone, create a social media account under your name. Manage conversations, followers, posts, and access together.
Raise Awareness: Educate your child about the negative impacts of social media, how to identify predators, avoid exploitation, and navigate online bullying or prevent becoming a bully.
Conclusion
Your child's online safety starts and ends with you. While social media platforms like Lemon8 have security features, their design is unsuitable for children. The creators make provision for minors on the platform to an extent. However, regardless of the strategies, the application is solely for adults. Therefore, safety policies and strategies will always be insufficient for a child.
Your child will require additional protection if they have an account. As a parent, this calls for proactive management of the online platform. You may need to set screen time limits, monitor posts and interactions, and okay followers. Start managing your child's online activity today.
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