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Technology.. help!!

stepmomsoon's picture

Submitted by stepmomsoon on Wed, 05/22/2013 - 11:07am

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Blended Family Issues

Yesterday I posted a question about the iPads and how we should monitor them and what they have on them, etc.

Now another question arose from all of this.. Instagram and Tumblr?

Ok, I feel old because I am not up to speed on these..

Last night SK's 12 & 14 were being asshats, so DH grounded them and sent them to bed - but first he took all electronics (should be a no brainer, but it isn't with him).. anyways, sk14's ipod was sitting on the counter and something popped up as a reply to someone on Tumblr..

Dh picked it up and said to me "what's tumblr?".. I shrugged and so we looked at his screen.. he has all kinds of pics of himself and one of the first things we saw as a comment was "I fucking can't wait for school to get out!!" from some girl.. (we knew it was a girl from the pic)..

Oh - kaaaay.. what now? So now they apparently have Tumblr and Instagram and can post things and say things we can't monitor here as well?

I have overheard sk12 say to sk14 before something to the effect of "that pic I posted got 9 comments/likes/whatever".. and showed it to him.. I didn't know what he was referring to at the time but now I get it ( I think )...

I mean, what the heck..? I need guidance here.. I am in the dark completely and so is DH..

Should we have access to this crap? I mean the kids are posting pics of themselves for god's sake.. that can't be safe..??

mom2mygirls's picture

Submitted by mom2mygirls on Wed, 05/22/2013 - 12:09pm

Instagram is, in my opinion, is a competition of who can get more "likes" on a picture. My daughter had a Tumblr blog and she re-posted all kinds of bull. I found it and made her delete the whole account. I require my kids to "friend me" on their social media, and I won't post on their sites unless they allow me to. My oldest one doesn't mind, my youngest one would rather die. But at least, I can check in on them now and again. I tell them I don't do it all the time, but they never know when I will, so they better behave like I am always watching.

stepmomsoon's picture

Submitted by stepmomsoon on Wed, 05/22/2013 - 12:10pm

This is so frustrating..

Their mom sets all this shit up on their ipads and iphones and then gives us no information on it. Just sends them over to our house with it..

They freaking have imessaging (something we can't monitor like texts), netflix, tumblr, instagram, ifunny (which I disagree with because some of the content is offensive) and passwords.. who the hell knows what else..

She just lets them go all willy nilly with it and we are completely in the dark..

Question - can we look up what they are posting on tumblr by searching their name?

nothinforya's picture

Submitted by nothinforya on Wed, 05/22/2013 - 12:24pm

You can turn off the wifi in your home, or password protect it, so they can't connect, but with phones with internet access, you have to have the phone in your possession to control access, because the connection comes from a cell tower, not the internet provider that you use. It is really almost impossible to restrict their use of the tech that exists in their world, without physically locking up anything that can connect to the internet, including gaming consoles and ipods.