Author name: Jenny Nicole

Cell Phone Tracking, Child Monitoring

What Parents Should Teach Kids about Digital Footprints

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Anything you ever do, say or post on the internet is saved forever, even if you delete it. Somewhere in the cyberverse, the remnants of your selfie, wall post or Tweet are going to remain in one form or the other. And that is what we call a digital footprint. Should this be a matter of concern to you as a parent? Probably not in the way you think. But consider doing a simple Google search of your child’s name and look at everything that turns up. There’s probably a lot of information, isn’t there? Facebook profiles, Twitter page, forum registrations, comments they left on an old YouTube video and so much more. Now if you could see all of this, so can a potential employer, the school principal, or even a predator. Snapchat got into a lot of trouble for saying that the snaps are ‘gone forever’ when they’ve been sent. Fact is, nothing on the internet is gone forever. The digital footprint tells you all there is to know about your kid’s online identity. So you’ll need to give them a few lessons about it. Lesson 1: Use an Alias Whether they are registering to a forum of their favorite video games, or going onto Tumblr, or Reddit, or any other social media outlets they use, make sure you tell them to use an alias instead of their names. This should make tracing their activity back to them a lot trickier. Lesson 2: Think Before You Post Future employers and colleges are increasingly Googling applicants just to do a background check. So your kids should think twice before posting anything. Is there a picture of them that shows a temporary lapse in character? Or perhaps a wall post in which they made an ignorant, prejudice comment. Lesson 3: You’re Always Being Tracked Facebook and Google knows everything you do online. Facebook saves every bit of information about you to sell to marketers. This is why when you sometimes watch one embarrassing YouTube video, a similar one appears on your “Recommended” list. So tell them to be safe with their browsing habits because they are always being monitored by third parties. Lesson 4: Share the Right Things It is wise to treat your digital footprint like an online resume. So when on your social media, share the right stuff. Highlight things like achievements, volunteer work, positive interests and talents. At the same time, do not overshare. We’ve learnt that anyone can Google you, including cyberstalkers. So don’t give them more information than you need to. Your Digital Footprint, Your First Impression Before you have even gone for that interview for a job or met someone new for a date, they have already Googled you to get an essence of who you are. Your digital footprint is a reflection of your online personality. And so it is wise for you to give your kids the awareness from the get go, just so they can start building their image.

Cell Phone Tracking, Child Monitoring, Employee Monitoring

A Very Festive Note from the XNSPY Team—Happy Holidays!

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It’s the most wonderful time of the year! And what a year it has been. We had no idea XNSPY would become as huge as it has and that we’d have so many wonderful customers so soon! We created this blog so it could be an outlet where we could come together and share our experience. But we’d admit now that we did so with a grain of salt… but the response has been amazing. You Inspire Us We began by promising you we’d be churning out lots of informative posts, and we think we’ve done well so far (if we might say so ourselves). But we were so excited, and very honored that you, the reader wanted to share our stories with us, too. We love that this blog has turned into a conversation, and that you guys want your input as well. So, we want to remind you guys this holiday season that we’re very thankful for you. We couldn’t have done this without you. The Holiday Spirit For us at XNSPY, Christmas is all about spending time with the people we love. We’ve been trying to help parents out by giving as much knowledge and tools as we can. We’ve also been helping employers and managers so they can better look after their employees. Our objective has never been to worry you or put you in a frenzy. We just want you to be more aware of what smartphones and hand-held devices have brought to the socio-digital playing field. We want to work to eliminate the tech gap between parents and kids. But most of all, we want parents to be able to look after their kids ever better. That’s what the holidays are all about, aren’t they? From XNSPY to You So, thank you for sticking with us and reading this blog! We’d love to keep hearing from you—we already have a few submissions lined up. Not to mention, we’ve got great stuff coming for you in 2015. And, because it’s the holidays and we want to give back, as a very merry offering, we’d like to remind that you can get XNSPY for 25% off now. How’s that for a stocking filler? Happy holidays!

Child Monitoring, Mobile Phone Spy

To Catch a Predator… With Digital Parental Monitoring

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Do you remember watching that NBC show with Chris Hansen? If you don’t, here’s what the premise was. A group of online pedophilia fighting adults called Perverted Justice would go on online chat rooms and pretend to be 13-14 year old girls. They’d wait for an older man to approach them and set up a real, offline meeting. And when the predator would show up and make his cruel intensions clear, they’d let him know he’s on television and arrest him. If anything, the show taught people just how important it is for parents to be more aware of their children’s online communications. Children may not realize they full scope of the danger they put themselves into, and you need to be the guide. Predators are Never Far The show proved how easy it was for a predator to gain access to your child at home. Pedophiles made the 2-hour drive if they had to if they knew that the child was home alone. They see the smallest chance for exploitation and they grasp at it. Since the show has been on the air, kids have started to use their own handheld devices. Which means a predator is never more than a tap of the finger away. Sweetie As if the show wasn’t enough to convince you just how perverted and accessible these predators are, the Dutch group, Terres des Hommes, developed a realistic looking avatar of a 10 year old child named Sweetie with the attention of unmasking predators. So far, they’ve caught over 1000 pedophiles. Handlers of the avatar say that they have lost sleep after interacting with people that approach Sweetie. If their sick perversions were enough to disturb adults, just imagine how much damage they’d cause to your child’s mind. And this is only through a computer screen. Taking Precaution This is the reason why I encourage parents to get more active in their children’s digital lives. Go through their phones, see who they are communicating with. Look at the downloaded content. Check their stored multimedia files for inappropriate selfies or explicit videos. And definitely go through their chats to see what they are talking about. Kids have the tendency to overshare. They’re not going to realize that when someone over the internet asks for their address, they’re doing so for dreadful reasons. Here’s what Lambert Child Safety found about online predators. First of all, what you need to do is place a parental monitoring app on your child’s phone. This will give you complete remote access to their phones, so you’d be able to look through its contents from your laptop. Second, read all their WhatsApp, Viber and iMessage chats. Look at the contact list so you know who they are talking to. Go through the chats carefully to see what they are talking about. Third, look at their internet browsing history. Look at the websites they visit, and go through them with a fine tooth comb. Are they forums? Gaming websites? Social media? What people do they interact with here? Educating Children Once you’ve properly been through your child’s phone and pointed out suspicious, or potentially dangerous content, talk to your kids. Educate them on what they should or should not be talking about on the internet with strangers. Here are a few things you should tell them. Don’t chat with random strangers about yourself Never give away email, phone number, address to an online stranger Sometimes predators will pretend to be younger Never exchange personal photos with a stranger Never appear on webcam for a stranger Never attempt to meet a stranger offline Never offer a favor to a stranger in exchange for gifts Never have private conversations with random strangers Inform a parent if something online seems suspicious Your parenting app will help you monitor every digital interaction your kid makes. So if you happen to find a potential predator, report them immediately. And remember, as long as you’re monitoring your child’s smartphone and internet usage closely, they’ll be fine.

Employee Monitoring

The 5 Different Faces of the Office Employee

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The reason why most management techniques bother me is that a lot of them refer to employees as herd of sheep. Where manager is the subject, and employee is the object. But employees come in all shapes, sizes, moods and personalities and there’s no singular way of managing them all at once. What we can do is try and lump them in loose categories so we can try and make some sense of how the whole management thing will work. And I’ll tell you why that’s important. During your time as manager, you’ll find that you’re more harmonious with certain personality types than others. And if you’re hiring the personalities not fit for your company, you’ll end up paying the cost. Look at what Mindflash found… So let’s try and talk about the different kind of people you’re most likely have to deal with during your stint as a manager. The Second in Command This person is pretty good at what they do. All their tasks are done on time, they’ve made all the reports you asked them to a week in advance, and they’ve come up with pretty good ideas for the next presentation, too. They might as well be your right hand man or woman. If you’re giving anyone a promotion, it’s them. All you got to do with these characters is keep reviving the sense of team. Make sure all their positive energies are deployed toward making the team better, not just in personal achievement. The Baby Bambi Every once in a while, you’re going to find yourself hiring what you promised yourself would be fresh, new talent. What you got instead are complete newbies… kids right out of college, and working with you is their very first job. These characters are a bit of a wild card because your success/failure balance with them is literally 50-50. You’ll find yourself playing mentor to this time. Often it may seem that you’re investing way too much time training them rather than getting actual work done. But don’t give up on them… because they’ll groom up to be tailor-made for your company. The Free Loader Every office has that one person who gets a lot less work done than the rest of the team. And the worst part is that managers are usually the last to know who these people are. It’s the team that takes the fall for their slack. Because these people are not very regular… they might as well be on a different clock. They spend more time browsing through funny YouTube videos than they do working. Or they might pretend to be completely clueless about most things, so you’d think it’s better if someone else does their work. Weed out these people. It’ll do you a lot of good to have an employee monitoring app at your disposal because it’s a great way of actually measuring who does how much work. The Lazy-But-Talent These ones are super frustrating. Because in theory, they have the most talent out of everyone else. But they don’t always seem to exercise it. You’ll see their stroke of genius every now and then, but then it’s back to being lackluster. And it’s annoying because you can’t decide whether their brilliant ideas are worth enough to wait for. Or whether they are a liability. The problem with these people is that they work on a whim. And for that, they always need inspiration. So your job with these is to always keep them motivated and inspired. Encourage them to come up with new ideas and orchestrate those ideas into excitable tasks. As long as you’re feeding their need for the novel, they’ll keep on surprising you. The Frowning Fred There will always be the one person in your team that wants to bring everyone down. And I don’t mean this in the competition/performance arena.  I mean this in the morale sense. Because Frowning Freds are pessimistic and panicky. They might be all-right workers, and their pessimism can be helpful because it helps you consider every consequence of a decision. But you need to decide carefully. Is their Frowning good for your company, or does it only serve to ruin the moment so to speak?

Cell Phone Tracking, Child Monitoring

The Terrible Cost of Social Media Oversharing: a Mother’s Account

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On October 29, I wrote a post about Cyber Dangers. This inspired one of our readers, a mother who wishes to remain anonymous, to share her own story with us. Hopefully, a real experience shared by our very own reader would show you just dire the consequences of social media oversharing can be. This is a mother’s story in her own words… I am a mother to a wonderful 14-year-old daughter. I don’t want to give her name away, but let’s call her Aly. She’s a brilliant girl—very bright, gets straight As, does extra credit and has a lot of friends. The only one of her habits that bothers me is her selfie taking obsession. She’s got over a 1000 Instagram followers and she talks about how many likes she gets on her photos all the time. I never thought much of it. She’s a good girl, and it’s not like taking pictures of herself is a point of concern. That’s what kids these days are doing, aren’t they? If only I’d known what was to come. A Photo Goes Viral A few weeks ago, Aly had taken part in a feminist campaign a few kids in her school had organized. They basically spoke out against street harassment and cat-calling. Naturally, she took multiple photos of herself holding up different slogans and shared them all over Facebook, Instagram and with her friends on WhatsApp. Then one morning, she woke up to find that one of her pictures from the campaign had gone viral. This would’ve been a nice thing… but it was not. The photo in question was of Aly holding up a poster saying ‘Stop Street Harassment’. But unfortunately, it didn’t go viral on the right forums. The photo found its way to 4chan. For those who don’t know, 4chan is the worst kind of web community, and is home to dangerous internet trolls. Disgusting gags demeaning feminists and Aly in particular were captioned on the picture and circulated until they found their way to other platforms like Reddit and 9gag. Misogynists were using it point and laugh. We even found that a website wanted to print the photo on mugs and t-shirts should this become a popular meme. And the worst part of it all? A few trolls had the nerve to white-out the poster and replace it with inappropriate words, then posted as ads on adult websites. Damage Control You can imagine the horror—both hers and mine—when we found out what was going on. I immediately went into damage control mode. I called up a friend who works in tech. He helped me track all the places the image was posted. We wrote to all web admins and told them to take the photo down. We warned everyone that the subject in the picture was a minor and that they’d get in serious trouble if they don’t. It took a few days, but eventually, most websites took it down, including the inappropriate ones. I can’t explain to you how anxious Aly was during this entire ordeal. She couldn’t stop crying, and to be honest, she wasn’t at fault here either. She shared a picture of herself being part of something positive like stopping street harassment. For that I am proud of her. But then I realized how important it is for me to monitor her internet activity. Because while she may not have done something that was blatantly wrong, kids need to be guided on privacy and oversharing. Lessons Learnt These are the lessons I learnt from my experience: Always check your child’s social media followers list How did Aly even have a 1000 followers on Instagram? Did she even know half the people on there? Probably not. And that’s where she went wrong. If there are people on your kid’s friends list that you’re not sure you can trust, get rid of them. Limit their social media posting I have now banned Aly from posting multiple photos of herself throughout the day. I’ve also limited the visibility of her photos so that only a few close friends would be able to view them.  Check their privacy settings Never let your children run public profiles. Aly kept open profiles on Facebook or Instagram because she thought it would bring them more likes on photos or posts. Make sure their personal pictures are only visible to close family and friends.  Always go through their phones Look through the kind of content they have on their own phones. I checked Aly’s photo gallery using a parental monitoring app to see literally thousands of selfies that I’m pretty sure she was going to post somewhere. Precaution I always assumed that because I had a good kid, I would never have to go through an ordeal like this. But the fact is, no matter how perfect your kid is, they are still children that need guidance and monitoring. Oversharing on social media is in fact a bad habit… one I would have been able to prevent if I had the right tools before. But not I’ve got my parental control app, and it’s a good precaution. I urge other parents to start monitoring their children’s devices, too. Do you have a story of your own to share? Let us know in the comments below!

Child Monitoring

Does Digital Detox Really Work?

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You might have heard the words ‘digital detox’ floating about lately. It’s a simple enough concept, but the basic premise is that we’ve plugged in our lives to the extent where we have started to lose unplugged human connections. And I think there is a great amount of validity to this concern. Of course this digitalization lends a lot to progress, but some people stop to think, at what cost? Why is Plugging in a Problem? Do you remember the kinds of games that you’d play as kids? A lot of those games came straight out of your imagination. Today’s kids rely on their smartphones and tablets and game consoles for entertainment. Their imagination is limited only to what someone has already created for them. Not to mention, extended amounts of time spent plugging in not good for the body or the mind. Does Digital Detox Work for Everyone? Now here’s an argument that tickled my line of thinking. That ‘digital detox’ in reality exists only for those that can afford it. This argument says that not everyone has the luxury to plug out. And I suppose there is some truth to it when you’re an adult. But then I think of my friend Jean and her 3-year-old son Tim. Tim can barely string together a sentence yet. But he’s an expert at Subway Surfers. And Jean has already begun to see how Tim’s attention span keeps dwindling, and how he never makes eye contact with anyone. And that he always seems distracted. Tim’s a pretty good window into what the generation that’s going to be born into smartphones and tablet is going to look like. Which makes you wonder, perhaps digital detox is worth trying. How to Detox Digitally? What you’ve got to do as the parent is specify a few hours into your child’s schedule where they simply unplug. They don’t use their phones, or their laptops, or their game consoles. And while they’re plugged out, encourage them to do something creative. Inspire them to adopt a new hobby, such as gardening or learning a new language, or art. They’ll find that time moves slower when they’re not using a device, but that’s a great thing. Because they can use all that extra time to actually work on themselves. They’ll discover talents they never knew they had, try stepping out to play or do volunteer work. They could even devote all that time on studying and getting better grades at school. Smartphones and tablets are like a black hole for kids. They can get sucked into the world beyond so that time has no meaning. Which can mean that they’re wasting away doing nothing productive. That’s where you stepping in with a digital detox agenda will work. Because all of a sudden, your kids will have the time to do something useful with their lives.

Announcements, Cell Phone Tracking, Mobile Phone Spy

XNSPY Offers 25% Discount on Premium Edition—Because You Deserve the Best Monitoring Experience!

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We’ve got another great offer for you. Following our Black Friday giveaway, you can now get the XNSPY Premium edition for 25% off! Our Premium package consists of every single feature that XNSPY has to offer, and now you’ll pay 25% less for all of that. Because we want to give you the best monitoring experience that you deserve. This offer will expire soon, so you better hurry up and get it while you can. What’s So Great about the Premium Edition? The Premium Edition is basically an all-access pass to our advanced mobile monitoring app. So, if you want an elevated monitoring experience, one that allows you to go through a phone like book, this is the package you’d go for. Be it monitoring WhatsApp or Viber, or getting alerts on activities, Premium literally does it all. And you’re getting it all on a 25% discount. Which means if you get an annual subscription, you’re only paying $12.49 a month! How Can I Get This Discount? If you’re a new user, go to our website and click on buy now. Then click on XNSPY Premium Edition, and that’s it! It’s also the perfect opportunity for our existing users to get an upgrade. No code, or any extra info is required from you. Simple subscribe or upgrade, and enjoy the Premium service for 25% off. This is a Limited Time Offer! You’ve got to be quick if you’re going to avail this opportunity because this offer will expire very soon. But if you’re looking to take your monitoring routine to the next level, this is going to be worth it. You can get this offer by going to our homepage, or simply by clicking here.

Child Monitoring

Is Music an Accurate Determinant of Personality

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Let’s talk pop music today. There’s been a lot of study on how music affects personality. Of course music is a giveaway when it comes to self-expression, but there’s also the theory that musical preferences are a determinant of personality. But it begs the question that can you, as the parent, control what music your child listens to? The reason I’m focusing on pop music is because it the one that kids are most exposed to. It’s what they hear on the radio, it’s what on television sets and in department stores. It is unignorable. But does it have direct or indirect effects on your child’s personality? Let’s find out. Analyzing Pop Music Content Before we start figuring out how consequential music is to personality, let’s first look at the content that pop music today contains. If I look back at what I’ve heard on the radio this past year, I can, off the top of my head tell you that many songs glorified Alcoholism and substance abuse Racial and homophobic slurs Body shaming Objectifying women Violence From the artist, this might be done to portray a sense of adventure and escapism, but to a 12-year-old mind, this might seem like the glamorous reality they’d like to have. So even when some songs cause moral outrage, they continue to be played and enjoyed Music Determines Behavior? Research has so far been divided on matching a certain musical preference to a certain personality type. For example, while the widely accepted concept would be that people that listen to heavy metal music tend to be more aggressive, some studies say that the more rebellious a person is, the less likely they are to listen to heavy metal. However, when a kid listens to certain kind of music, they might identity with the persona of the music itself and the subculture it represents. Which in turn may determine their behavior. It effects their Language Garb/fashion Peer group Activities So, while a correlation between music and personality is debatable, we can safely say that certain sporadic behaviors might be a result of something they saw on TV. It might instigate an idea. For example, if they saw their favorite pop star light up 5 cigarettes at one time, they might be inclined to do the same. What You Can Do? You can’t stop them from listening to pop music altogether. That is entire unreasonable, and slightly difficult in this day and age. What you can do is monitor and mediate it. Get a parental control app and use it to see what songs your child has on their smartphone. Listen to the content of the lyrics, and should you find something inappropriate, have a conversation with them. Your goal is to not let them be swayed by the smoke and mirrors of popular culture. Talk to them about the realities and consequences of alcoholism, slurs and violent behaviors portrayed in music videos. Mediate what is being fed to them by the media. Also know that not all kinds of pop music is bad. There are lots of artists out there that sing about body positivity, empowerment and kindness.

Announcements

Your Best Black Friday Giveaway—XNSPY Gives a 100% Discount on All Offers!

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We’re getting with the spirit of giving this holiday season. So, we’ve decided to give you all a 100% discount offer on all your XNSPY products. But you’ve got to hurry up because this incredible offer ends midnight of Cyber Monday. Honestly, this will be the Black Friday steal you’re going to be talking about for ages. This is not a drill, we repeat, this is not a drill; the app’s completely free! XNSPY Will Be Your Monitoring Companion Black Friday sales can be brutal. It’s a jungle out there with people scrambling about to get their best purchases. Wouldn’t you be worried when your kid goes out there today in all that chaos? It’s situations like these when you’ll desperately need a monitoring app. And how about all you employers that’re working away during the holiday? You might need something to keep an eye on your employees that makes Black Friday a bit easier for them and for you. There is No Time to Lose! So keeping all your monitoring needs in mind, we want to give back to you this holiday season. But we just want to let you guys know that this is a limited time offer. You can get XNSPY for free starting Black Friday through Cyber Monday. The offer ends when the clock strikes 12 at the end of Monday. So really, get up and get it quick as you can. What’s in Your XNSPY Holiday Giveaway? So what’re you getting anyway? You’re getting a whole month’s service will all the goodies XNSPY has to offer, absolutely free. No credit card required. No User Code Needed. All you need to do is install the app and use our services for free. What more could you ask for? How Do I Avail this Offer? All you’ve got to do is go to our website and click on the ‘Buy Now’ button. They’re scattered all over the website really, you won’t miss them. Once you do, you’ll just have to fill in some basic information. No credit card, nothing like that. (lesroches.edu) Next, we’ll send you a download link. And that’s it! It really is as simple as that. This holiday, we didn’t want to settle on giving you just any regular discount. We wanted to give you a total giveaway so we’ve made the app completely free. So what are you doing wasting time reading this blog? I told you, this is a limited time offer, go on, get your free service while you still can! Or click here to get your free app right now!

Child Monitoring

3 Really Useful Thanksgiving Lessons for Your Kids

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Everyone has that one buzzkill in their family who has to ruin the fun by saying “Let’s not forget what Thanksgiving is really about”. I know I would groan when I heard that as a kid. And I still do. Because a sentence like that just seems too insincere to have any real impact on anyone, especially when spoken amidst a tradition of gluttony and football. So try and teach your kids something more applicable this Thanksgiving. Something they can implement into their daily lives. Something that has a bit more influence than a comment made on the offhand. Here are a few lessons you could try. Be a Sharer Not a Hoarder Your kid is bound to have a few toys lying around that they never play with. Or if your kids are older, they probably have a few clothes that they never wear. A valuable lesson you can teach your kids is not to be hoarders. If they don’t think they want to use anything anymore, set it aside and give them away to someone who needs them. Clothes, toys, books and such are always needed in children’s homes. In doing so, they might be more appreciative of the things they have. Let’s be honest, we live in a materialistic cycle, and your kids will always want new things. But teaching them to share what they have could be a lesson that goes with them a long way. Recommended For you:   Parental Control App – Cell Phone Parental Control Software Little Acts of Kindness Being a good human being doesn’t have to be so hard. Sometimes, little acts of kindness speak more volumes than grand gestures. Teach your kids to do something nice for someone as part of their day. This could be leaving a bowl of water for cats and dogs, helping a younger sibling with their homework, or clearing out snow out of a driveway. There’s power in the little things because your kid will find most things achievable and easy to do, but it also reinstates the notion that they need to be compassionate. Just make sure their little acts of kindness are meaningful and are meant to provide benefit to someone else… not just themselves. Gratitude all the Way And finally, another great lesson for your kids is to show gratitude throughout the year… but Thanksgiving is a great day to start this tradition. You can achieve this by practicing gratitude exercises every now and then. Ask your kids to list down what they’re thankful for. Take a moment from your rigorous routines to remind your kids that they have pretty awesome lives. This helps them be grounded, and allows them to set higher goals for themselves. And like I said earlier, a child embedded in gratitude will grow up to be a more optimistic adult. Kids don’t always take in abstract concepts in the same way adults do. What do they know what they’re truly supposed to be thankful when a tableful of food awaits them? These three lessons helps break those abstract concepts into tiny, achievable tasks. So as long as they’re genuinely trying to do something nice for themselves and others, go ahead and celebrate the gluttony. Happy Thanksgiving! Read More: 7 Tech Tools that will Make Great Digital Stocking Fillers for the Holiday Season

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