Parents' Guide to

Tribe - Video Messaging - Faster than texting, easier than live video and phone calls

By Patricia Monticello Kievlan, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 15+

Tap, hold, release to share quick videos with your friends.

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With parental supervision and used by older teens, there's some potential here to share fun videos with small groups, but users need to be well-versed in the risks. Though the app is pretty limited unless your friends are on it, it's a neat way to think about messaging without text or emojis. It's part Snapchat, part Vine, part walkie-talkie, and its bright colors and dead-simple one-finger recording features make it a pleasure to use. However, video sharing is a different animal from text messaging, so parents may want to talk to teens about how it's easier to send unintended information via video than in a crafted text message, especially since it's so easy to send a video with this app: There are only a few seconds to delete the video and start over before it's automatically sent, and it's very possible to send a video to the wrong person. Also, the automatic location-sharing is a potential concern if teens are sharing videos with contacts they don't know especially well. In terms of functionality, its simplicity is a blessing and a curse, as more options around creating, editing, sharing, and deleting videos would help with the potential "uh-oh" factor.

App Details

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