Are Your Kids Playing “Smash or Pass” on Facebook?
March 7, 2011 at 9:52 am 2 commentsFacebook is often the go-to place online for different games and trends to take off, but some of them aren’t always the most appropriate. One “game” in particular is called “Smash or Pass,” and the stated Mission on one of its Facebook fan page reads: “To See Who Is The Hottest!” The concept behind Smash or Pass is that users (primarily teens) post photos of themselves that other users then comment on, stating whether they would hook up with that person (smash), not hook up with them (pass) or, on some versions of the pages, that they already have hooked up with that person (already had).
If this sounds bad enough for something that older teens or adults are participating in, a recent Fox news report found that kids as young as middle school-aged are engaging in Smash or Pass too. Family and child services expert Claudia Arthrell says that this is forming a “system of approval and disapproval” that can put a lot of pressure on kids to hook up just for acceptance. Not to mention the fact that being rated on physical appearance is degrading and a serious form of cyberbullying.
Some groups of kids are even creating Smash or Pass pages for their specific community or school, such as the “Downey Smash or Pass” in Downey, CA. On these pages in particular, students can have their pictures posted by fellow teens without even knowing it, similar to Burn Pages and other forms of school bullying directly through social networking sites like Facebook. While it’s unimaginable to think that our kids could be participating in this kind of “game,” it’s important for parents to have a solid understanding of what their kids are doing online. Ask your kids if they’ve heard of these kinds of online trends and explain to them the serious dangers of oversharing, online reputation damage and other online privacy and safety risks.
Have you heard of any kids in your neighborhood or school district participating in this kind of online activity?
This is facebooks biggest flaw, it let’s anyone create an application, use that application to access peoples personal information and do whatever they want with it, although their “policy” says that they are against app makers doing this with users information, but seriously, anyone can do it and they do! They don’t check out these apps either, well that is until someone gets hurt or there is public outcry about it. Like this app in question, an idiot can see the potential dangers when you let others know your exact location (check in’s). All someone has to do is act like they are a friend, get that group update and bingo, they now know where your child will be and with who, cross reference your target with their facebook profile info and now you know a whole lot about them. They go to the location, front as a friend of the parents and off your child goes with a complete stranger! This is why I am so done with facebook! I’m not against the check in thing if it was A LOT more secure and the privacy settings for it where A LOT more clear and easy to figure out, because as of now, I don’t even know how to make it safe! I now really only go on facebook to post stories like these ones to make others aware of how sharing to much information can be dangerous! AutumnsList is taking the privacy A LOT more serious and maybe you might want to check it out, I’m on there too, just look up Evie
We agree – there are definitely different apps and online groups or forums out there that don’t always provide the best or simplest privacy settings. It’s important to know – especially when helping kids learn safe online practices – how to keep your online privacy intact no matter what social networking site you’re dealing with.