Teenagers are always looking for new and fun ways to connect with their friends on their smartphones. The Kik app offers one more opportunity to send individual and group chat messages with text-based messages, photos, or videos. Because students can easily connect with strangers on the app, parents need to stay aware of who their teens are chatting with online.

Parent & educator training video

What is the Kik app?

• The goal of Kik is “connecting the world through chat”
• Each user creates a unique username and must acknowledge they are 13 or older, but there is not an age identification process beyond entering a valid email address
• Users can chat one-on-one or in group messages with known friends or strangers
• Users can share videos and photos in their chats and groups
• Kik “bots” offer more options for users to chat and play games with automated responses in the app  
• Users can download and share their Kik Codes or share their unique username to allow others to find them on the app
• The app saves between 200 and 1,000 messages in each chat thread depending on how long ago the chat happened and the device being used

Where is Kik available and who can use it?

• Apple app store: 17+
• Google Play: T (Teen)
• Owned by Media Lab.AI based in California
• Kik Terms of Service
• Users must be 13 years of age or older in the United States

Kik in the news

[A] 53 [year old man],was indicted for five counts of pandering sexually oriented material involving a minor and six counts of illegal use of minor in nudity-oriented material or performance. WHIO

[The man’s] phone showed that he texted a 13-year-old girl more than 400 times, pretending to be a high school sophomore named “Jack” and enticing her to him send nude selfies, investigators said, adding Bywater also sent the seventh-grader his own nude photos. Ledger-Enquirer

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigations received information from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department regarding the online activity of a 44-year [man]. During the investigation, Agents determined [he] possessed and transmitted several dozen images and videos consistent with child pornography on the mobile messaging application Kik. WGNS

[A]  42 [year old man], met a [14 year old] ‘girl’ on the Kik messenger app where he constantly asked her to show him what she looked like. Whenever she refused, he threatened to sever contact between them… As the conversation progressed onto Snapchat, he told her she was ‘pretty’, asked if she wanted to be his ‘boo’ and told her he ‘didn’t want any girl other than her.' Manchester Evening News

Why should parents care about Kik?

• Age verification does not exist beyond a basic user agreement
• Without an email, phone number, or age verification process, users never be sure who other users are in real life
• Users can report other users for explicit messages (chat, photo, or video). However,  banned users can simply create new accounts and repeat offenses against the terms of use
• Strangers can easily ask for personal information to exploit other users
• Like anything online, users can screen record “private” conversations. They can then share messages or recordings off the platform for other purposes

What can parents do?

• Talk with your students about the danger of talking to strangers, even online. Consider a family rule of talking to friends “in real life” on any social media platform
• Remind students to not share information in the app beyond the required email address. Do not allow the app to find friends using the contact information in your phone’s address book
• Help your students find age-appropriate ways to meet new friends (sports, activities, moderated student groups, etc.)
• Ask your teen to show you their chat messages in Kik.  Note: logging into their Kik on another device will delete their chat history
• Remind your students to never meet someone from the internet. Other users may not actually be who they say they are offline
• Tell your students they can always come to you (or another trusted adult) if they feel uncomfortable
• Teach your teen to not respond to messages from strangers that make them feel uncomfortable
• Join the SmartSocial Very Informed Parent program to learn how to start conversations about shining online with your students

Expert tips

In this video podcast Josh Ochs interviews Jere Simpson and Jared Agnew, co-founders of Net Pure; Jacob DiMartino, founder of Raadr; and Dr. Don Austin; Superintendent of Palos Verdes Peninsula USD to ask them Kik Messenger safety tips for parents and educators that can help kids stay safe on social media—and even be productive.

Can anonymous apps like Kik Messenger be safe for students?

We’ve been hearing a lot in the media about Kik Messenger and how this app can be bad for your entire family, especially students. We do a lot of education at Net Pure as a way to inform parents and help them make smart decisions, and what we find a lot of times is they get a list from school of apps their kids shouldn’t use. The problem is that list changes all the time. So we work to help parents figure out what makes an app dangerous rather than just consulting a list.

Parents should watch out for apps that combine anonymous messaging with geographic matching. - Jere Simpson

The one thing we really want to impress upon parents is to watch out for apps that combine anonymous messaging with geographic matching. These allow people to get in touch with someone they don’t really know, and it’s local. For people who exploit children, their ambition is to eventually make a physical connection, so those are absolutely the most dangerous.

Kik obviously falls into that category, and right here in our state, unfortunately, there was the tragedy in which a 13-year-old girl was murdered. She was using Kik somewhat like a dating site and wanting to meet people outside of the way she normally would. And she met her murderer through Kik.

What makes Kik particularly dangerous is that not only does it combine the anonymous messaging with geographic matching, but Kik is not an American company, and as such there are different rules and laws as to how they are to cooperate with law enforcement in the United States. Predators know this, so they tend to target apps like that.

A lot of parents ask us, well, what about Google Hangout, what about GChat? GChat doesn’t match with location. While in theory you could be anonymous, online predators know that Google is the best in their business at figuring out as much about you as possible. They’re very good at being able to reverse engineer exactly who is behind any anonymous message, because they’re an advertising company at heart. So we don’t deem that in the same class as something like Whisper, Kik or Snapchat.

— Jere Simpson, Net Pure

Set good ground rules first. Then kids can communicate with others within your rules. - Jacob DiMartino

I’ve talked to a lot of parents where their kids have actually been bullied through apps like this. But as you can see, it gets very dangerous outside of bullying too. So we suggest things that can be more controlled. Facetime is a big one if the parents can have some control over that.

Kids are going to be kids, and they’re going to try to get around things, but the main thing we want to emphasize with parents is setting good ground rules first. Kids shouldn’t be on their phone late at night, and there should be monitoring. So to find the best alternatives to Kik, start by setting ground rules on exactly how their kids should be interacting and who they should be interacting with. Set those ground rules, and then they’ll go out and find apps where they can conversate and communicate with others within your rules.

—Jacob DiMartino, Raadr

What we’re trying to tell our parents and our teachers is, know the right questions to ask your kids. - Dr. Don Austin

I think if the parents goal is to keep up with every new app that comes up, they’re always going to feel a higher level of anxiety, because it just isn’t possible. So what we’re trying to tell our parents and our teachers is, know the right questions to ask your kids. I had an experience with this this morning. I was talking to my daughter who’s a senior in high school, and I said, ‘I’m preparing for this conversation about the Kik app—what would you say about it?’

And the very first thing she brought up is that it’s anonymous. So as a parent and as an educator, that leads me to the ability to have more questions about why that’s a good or bad thing and what her thought is.

The second thing she came out with was the ability to search, which she thought was a really bad thing. Again, that’s another opportunity to have a conversation with a student. So now I don’t have to be the expert on every app that comes out. But we at least need to know the questions to get the conversation started, and then we can talk about, okay, it doesn’t matter what the app is—how should we act in these environments? So that’s where we spend the bulk of our time.

— Dr. Don Austin

Parents: Please ask your students if they have the Kik app, and if any strangers have contacted them. - Josh Ochs

I have one friend on Kik and didn’t share my username with anyone. However, when I open up the app—and this happens to children all the time—several strangers are reaching out to me asking, Are you up? Are you there now? And these are people I’ve never reached out to, met or told my user name.

Fake people on Kik Messenger are phishing me to see if I will respond.

When I noticed all of these messages, I was confused. Could I know these people and not be aware of who they are on this app? Should I reach out and try to see who it is so I can connect? Is it rude to not respond? I’m a social-media safety-guy, and if I’m confused about whether these people know me or not—and they definitely don’t—do you think your children would be confused? I think the answer is yes.

— Josh Ochs, Founder SmartSocial.com

How can we teach kids about data safety vs. data vulnerability?

In light of the conflict between Apple and the FBI over trying to unlock the iPhone of a terrorist—what tips would you have for parents to say ‘Everything you do could end up being hacked and becoming public’?

Let your child know there is nothing private on the Internet... - Jared Agnew

Parents need to educate their children as best they can. Most of the school districts that we deal with are making an effort to educate parents so they can do that. But the big thing is to let your child know that there is nothing private on the Internet—nothing that’s going to escape archiving in some shape or form.

But I think, specifically with Apple, however you feel on this issue, they have one of the strongest parental controls as part of their ecosystem that’s available. It’s granular enough so you can shut off the ability for a child to shut off their own history. So they make it possible for parents to make sure they’re in control of their children’s device. We’re not specifically promoting Apple, but in this issue, it is a major concern.

—Jared Agnew, Net Pure

Usually an app’s privacy statement will say whether the information is personally identifying or not. - Jere Simpson

If I can add to that, over the past five years this has brought up concerns at our company in that we want to make sure that we hold as little data as possible so we won’t be in this compromising position. And Apple has really done the best that they can to do that, because they do have to give over the information they have when subpoenaed, and so they’ve tried to reduce what they have. That’s why this has come up in the first place is because they gave over all their messages. They’re all encrypted. So now the government, to try to track these terrorists down, wants to get that data. So we really encourage parents to look at what their kids use and then do a quick query on those companies and how much of your data they hold.

Usually someone’s privacy statement will say whether the information is personally identifying or they just hold general demographics. So if it’s general and they’re studying behavior for advertising purposes, but it’s not tied to you and your kids, that’s not so bad. But when it’s specifically tied to you because they’re trying to advertise back to you, then they’re collecting a lot of your data.

—Jere Simpson, Net Pure

What are productive ways students can use screen time safely?

As parents, we’ve got educate students that the things they post will change their online footprint. - Jacob DiMartino

Screen time is inevitable these days. Gone are the days when people say, ‘My 13-year-old has no screen time—no TV, no iPad, no iPhone.’ I’m seeing younger and younger kids spending a lot of time on these devices. How can screen time be safe and productive for students?

我认为第一件事是设定孩子使用屏幕时间的时间。另外，他们在屏幕时间里在做什么？整合教育和教育应用程序（有成千上万种）使孩子们能够在屏幕时间中学习和发展。

然后，学生不仅可以高效地使用屏幕时间，还要将其用作建立足迹的过程。归根结底，孩子们不明白未来的雇主能看到他们在那里的投入。未来的雇主可以访问他们的社交媒体（事实证明，他们确实如此），他们可以看到自己发布的内容。因此，作为家长，作为管理者，作为社区中的人，我们必须坐下来教育他们，让他们明白为什么你提出的东西很重要。因此，我认为我们需要确保家长明白，这些孩子发布的内容变成了数字简历。这是我们生活的新世界。

—雅各布·迪马蒂诺， 雷达

虽然我认为设备时限并不奏效，但我认为封锁时间真的很重要。-Don Austin

试着谈谈 “专注时间”。假设你的学生在传统的计算机屏幕前，他们必须打开七个窗口吗？他们是否启动了Facebook和Twitter，他们正在尝试同时处理多项任务但还能把事情做好？研究表明，即使是那些认为自己可以同时处理多项任务的人，也不会像他们想象的那样出色。

当你看手机的时候... 我和任何人一样有罪。吃晚饭而且我们五个人都在打电话，这种情况并不少见。

我问自己，我们在干什么？因此，尽管我认为时间限制并不真正奏效，就像节食一样；只会持续很短的时间，但我认为封锁时间真的很重要。另外，设置适合年龄的限制。你越年轻，减少（对社交媒体）的依赖可能更为重要。你能解除依赖关系的时间越长越好，因为在某个时候你可能会输掉那场战斗。同时，我认为雅各布所说的关于你的数字足迹的话非常重要，这是 Josh 对我们的学生所做的一些工作，实际上是展示人们发布的内容的例子。它使它更加真实。我们建议孩子们：“人们会对你进行这样的搜索，所以去自己动手看看他们会看到什么。”这真是令人大开眼界。

— 唐·奥斯汀博士

请记住，确保学生的上网安全是马拉松，而不是短跑。这需要大量的工作，首先要与学生进行健康的对话。

结论

Kik应用程序提供了另一个机会，可以发送带有文本消息，照片或视频的个人和群组聊天消息。由于学生可以在应用程序上轻松与陌生人联系，因此家长需要随时了解他们的青少年正在与谁在线聊天。

其他资源

要了解有关青少年正在使用的其他即时通讯应用程序的更多信息，请阅读我们的 最佳聊天应用程序：家长、教育工作者和学生需要知道的内容