A video chat app which allows youngsters to match with strangers has led to warnings by experts for parents to closely monitor their child’s phone use.
The Monkey app, which is pitched at teenagers, lets users talk face-to-face with random people for 15 seconds and add extra time to the call if they both agree. The craze for such chatting apps is increasing. However, you must ensure that the site that you are using to talk to strangers is safe to use.
Child psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg said parents need to be extra vigilant about who their children are talking to, The Daily Telegraph reported.
The Monkey app allows users to video chat fellow users for 15 seconds
Users can add extra time to their video chat if they wish and they can also converse in text format
‘These are virtual playgrounds for children which (potentially) become a vehicle for paedophiles to prey on their victims,’ Mr Carr-Gregg said.
The app has 300,000 active users and has been downloaded three million times.
Users can also talk to people in text format and they can select to ‘vibe’ with those who share similar interests.
The federal government’s eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, said apps such as Monkey can ‘present a number of serious risks’ to children because their brains have not yet developed critical thinking.
One user who reviewed the app said it was not just for children – more and more adults had signed up.
‘Personally I love Monkey, it’s a great app to meet people MY age and get to know people. But now that’s starting to change since WAY older adults are coming on the app making it not as fun and very dangerous and sexual,’ they wrote.
The app offers users the option to ‘vibe’ with people who share similar interests
The Monkey app was launched by two teenagers, Ben Pasternak (pictured) and Isaiah Turner
The Monkey team responded by saying it would review the feedback in depth.
‘We monitor the platform to see if users are hiding their real age, and we encourage everyone on Monkey to report those who are lying about their information or harassing the community,’ they said.
The app was launched in 2016 by two teenagers, Sydneysider Ben Pasternak and his business partner from the United States, Isaiah Turner but they have now sold their interests in the app.
Its aim was to ‘fill the loneliness void in teenagers’ by helping them make internet friends around the world, who they can then talk to on Snapchat.
Monkey’s name is derived from the three wise monkeys, and as such prides itself on being a ‘safe space’ with a strict code of conduct.