The danger of children downloading apps

The idyll of children with cell phones and tablets is inherent in a generation like yours, born in the middle of the technological development. Many factors must be taken into account when leaving children to handle this type of device. No matter what operating system the mobile phone or the tablet

The idyll of children with cell phones and tablets is inherent in a generation like yours, born in the middle of the technological development.

Many factors must be taken into account when leaving children to handle this type of device. No matter what operating system the mobile phone or the tablet has, there are millions of applications available for download, which increases the risk.

We tell you what are the dangers of children downloading applications.How to avoid inappropriate content and payment downloads

Prevention is the best solution both to avoid

risk of downloading applications that are not appropriate for children, and to prevent purchases of paid applications from being made, or within an application that has associated purchases despite being free. The first step to be carried out would therefore be

to block the download of applications by means of a security code, which the child should not know, since then the existence of a code would be the same or not. This should be enough to avoid problems with bank charges for purchases of applications and, of course, to ensure that the child can not download inappropriate material. But prevention stops working at a certain age, since they already have their own devices and it is more difficult to control the content they handle. Therefore, if you decide to buy a mobile or a tablet to the child, you must assume a series of risks. If you do not have a credit card

associated with the terminal, it will not be possible for the child to download paid applications. There is also the option of applying a parental control by means of which only appropriate applications appear for the child's age. The danger is not in the applications, but in how they are used Still there are applications approved for use by children

older than 12 years

and that can be a risk. For example, Snapchat is a service of exchange of images that gives the false sense of security that the photos sent will be destroyed in a maximum of 10 seconds, which provides adolescent children to lose their shame and to take photographs of themselves. same in different situations and then share them. But someone with bad intentions could perform a screenshot to then coerce the child. But as in the previous case, the applications themselves are not the problem, but the use that is made of it. For example, an application like Ask.fm is a place where questions and answers are made,

but normally the expressions and conversation topics that occur in them are not what is said to be appropriate for a child. In all these cases information and good communication between parents and children is essential

. It is very important that children trust their parents and know that they should ask for permission and advicebefore downloading any application. Diego Fernández . Editor of Guiainfantil.com