Teens love chatting with total strangers. Some apps allow them to do it via their web camera. Learn how to keep your child safe from this dangerous online trend.

One of the most exciting aspects of social media for teens is the opportunity to meet and talk to people they don’t know. If you are thinking that this flies in the face of one of the basic safety rules you taught your child when they were little, don’t talk to strangers, you’d be right. Your teen knows talking to a strange adult face-to-face is dangerous and would never do it, but something about talking to a strange adult on a screen seems inconsequential. We talk to tens of thousands of teens every year, and without exception, they tell us talking to a stranger is dangerous but they do it online all the time. When we ask them to explain the obvious discrepancy between what they know is safe and what they are doing, they say real-life choices “feel” different than online decisions. This mindset makes perfect sense in light of what we see every day online. Every child that I have talked to about sending a mean or hurtful online message always says they would have done it differently if they were face-to-face with the recipient. This is true for adults too. Thoughtless Twitter posts have ended careers and relationships.

Ome TV is a new popular iteration of many online platforms that pair strangers together online and often do that through their web cameras. Ome TV is an alternative to Omegle. Omegle is one of the most popular types of apps that connects with strangers and has been on the scene for a while. Its popularity is mainly due to Youtubers who have become famous by creating Omegle prank videos on YouTube. If you search for “Omegle pranks” on YouTube, you can watch hundreds of these videos and begin to understand why a teen would be drawn to seek out a similar “fun” experience on Omegle’s websit ...