Is Snapchat Safe For Kids? (2024)

Key takeaways about Snapchat safety for kids
Snapchat may not be safe for children.
The camera messaging application has inadequate age requirements it fails to enforce.
Parents cannot effectively monitor their child’s Snapchat activity.
Snapchat has allegedly been linked with anxiety, depression, body image issues and more.

What is Snapchat?

Snapchat is a social media messaging app made by Snap, Inc. Users can communicate through short videos and images known as Snaps. Snapchat’s distinguishing feature is that messages, videos and images are only available for a short amount of time. After that time, the media expires and supposedly disappears.

Snapchat launched in 2011 and was immediately successful. Within the first year, users sent more than 20 million Snaps per day. By 2022, Snapchat users were sending over 5 billion Snaps per day. With millions of daily users, Snapchat is one of the most popular social media platforms worldwide.

What are the potential risks of letting children use Snapchat?

Studies show that some potential risks of letting children use Snapchat include adverse effects on their anxiety levels, body image, depression, fear of missing out (FOMO), loneliness and sleep quality.

Since its creation, Snapchat has been popular among youth. According to the company’s CEO, Evan Spiegel, many early Snapchat users were high school students, and Snap server data recorded high activity during the school day.

Snapchat age requirement

Snapchat’s age requirements don’t work. Between 2011 and 2013, users didn’t have to enter a birth date when creating an account. In 2013, Snapchat established age requirements, limiting the app to users 13 years old or older. But the app doesn’t have an age verification process to prevent children from lying about their age, creating accounts and accessing harmful features.

What age is appropriate for Snapchat?

No specific age is considered appropriate for Snapchat. Anyone aged 13 and up can create a Snapchat account. Snapchat has an estimated 18 million users in the United States who are 17 years old or younger.

Users under age 13 aren’t allowed to sign up for a Snapchat account. However, there’s no system to verify the age of young users or enforce age violations. Kids can easily change their birthdate to create an account. In fact, if a user is turned away for being underage, they can go back and update their birthdate in the same session without any repercussions. As of 2022, an estimated 2.8 million Snapchat users in the United States are 12 years old or younger.

Can Snapchat be monitored by parents?

Snap’s parental controls don’t do enough to allow parents to monitor their children’s Snapchat use. Parents can’t see the Snaps their children send and receive, even when parental controls are activated. As a result, they can’t protect or prevent their children from engaging in unsafe behavior and suffering harm while using Snapchat.

Snap introduced the “Family Center” in August 2022. Family Center enables a parent or guardian to install Snapchat on their phone. The app allows them to link to the child’s Snapchat account and see who their child interacts with. However, parents can’t see the actual communications and the Snaps disappear after the designated time. Parents also can’t block minors from conducting dangerous activities, including:

Adding strangers to their friend list
Creating a Snapchat account without parental permission

Because Snapchat’s parental controls are inadequate, parents can’t monitor their children’s activity and safety on the social media app.

How safe is Snapchat?

Snapchat may not be safe for children. Plaintiffs allege Snapchat’s features are designed to addict users, causing them to increase their app use and expand the company’s revenue. The psychological manipulation can cause kids to suffer from serious mental and physical conditions.

The company induces addictive behavior with trophies, rewards, filters, lenses, games and time-sensitive, disappearing messages.

Some of Snapchat’s most harmful and seemingly defective features include:

Beauty filters: This Snapchat feature has allegedly been connected to “Snapchat Dysmorphia” and a condition called body dysmorphic disorder. Experts believe these filters cause a sense of “unattainable perfection” that harms self-esteem. “The pressure to present a certain filtered image on social media” can lead to depression and anxiety for adolescents still discovering themselves.
Charms: Users can get Charms when they reach higher levels in their relationships with other users. The more teens engage with other users, the more Charms they receive. Charms are awarded for different reasons, but all are intended to encourage greater engagement on Snapchat. For example, “It’s Been Forever” and “It’s Been a Minute” Charms are given to less frequent Snapchat users to motivate them to use the app more.
Snapstreaks: Snapstreaks are another harmful Snapchat feature that creates a compulsion to continue using the app. Over one-third of Snapchat users believe Snapstreaks are as important as Instagram “Likes.” Snap’s own research has found that Snapstreaks make users think it is “extremely” or “very important” to keep a Streak going. Some young people said the stress of maintaining a Streak was “intolerable.” Losing a Streak leads to negative feelings of betrayal for many teenage users. Snap even offers an official appeal method to help those who lost their streak and wish to get it back.
Spotlight: Spotlight is a Snapchat feature that pushes an “endless feed” to and from its users. Spotlight enables users to make videos that anyone may view and compensates users when their videos go viral. Spotlight’s introduction increased the time Snapchat users spent on the platform by more than 200%. As of February 2022, users spent more time on Spotlight than nearly every other Snapchat feature.

Snapchat is marketed as “temporary social media.” Users share rapidly disappearing messages (Snaps) intended to be genuine, impulsive and authentic. However, disappearing Snaps do not necessarily disappear. Although Snaps are advertised to disappear at a specific time, those who receive them can screenshot or record them. This defect is especially harmful for users who only learn this information after they have sent an embarrassing or explicit photo or video. Plaintiffs allege Snapchat has failed to warn teenagers that their Snaps are not temporary, as advertised.

Snapchat legal rights for parents

Parents of children and teens harmed by Snapchat have a legal right to file a lawsuit against Snapchat. Several lawsuits have already been filed against Snapchat and other social media companies, including a multidistrict litigation (MDL). Snapchat is named as a defendant in MDL 3047 which is being litigated in the Northern District of California.

Lawsuits allege that the social media apps are designed to be addictive, and that addictive use is harmful to children. These harms include serious mental health conditions and engaging in dangerous, reckless behavior.

Our experience helping families and children

Motley Rice attorneys have worked for decades to seek justice for children and families harmed by corporations, including technology and social media companies. If you need help filing a lawsuit related to Snapchat’s effect on the mental health of yourself or your child, our law firm can assist.

Read more on our social media litigation experience.

Help for self-harm and suicidal behavior
If you or a loved one are in crisis, free and confidential national resources are available to help right now.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available by phone at 988 or by visiting 988lifeline.org.
The National Eating Disorder Association is available by phone at 1-800-931-2237 or by visiting NationalEatingDisorders.org.

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