Amino - Communities, Chat, Forums, and Groups

Equal parts internet chat room, social media platform, and fan art gallery, this network is a place for fans to share about the things they love, but there are privacy concerns and iffy content. Nicely, each community has its own guidelines that encourage users to be supportive and to keep their language clean, and most users abide by these standards. It's exciting for teens for find or even create a community focused on media or topics they love, and the language within the app invites users to "demonstrate your knowledge" and "join the conversation." However, there are definitely some privacy concerns here: You can follow users at will and others can follow you, and posting in a public community makes your post visible to any other user in that community. You can create closed communities, but teens will more likely gravitate toward the more established, more active existing groups. Since the chat feature can also include voice and video, and there are a mix of adults and kids using the app, parents should decide if their teen can use chat (and which type is okay). With their teen, parents should also make sure no location in included in their kid's profile. In terms of user-friendliness, it can be hard to navigate at first, so it's not initially super easy to fully jump in, but teens will get the hang of it with some practice. Ultimately, with some smart digital citizenship skills in place, teens can find a lively, positive digital space to connect with like-minded enthusiasts from around the world.