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Instagram's Latest Hook

By Karen Farris, Op-ed contributor Monday, July 16, 2018

Generation Z loves everything digital. Instagram's latest development, IGTV is an app that features videos (up to an hour in length). Videos can be created and shared with a vast audience. You don't need to be famous or anything, you can use your phone, then video whatever you want, and put it up in the cyberworld. What possibly could go wrong?

Designed as an alternative to Google's YouTube platform, IGTV has no financial compensation plan offered to the video creators. This means that to gain a following, you'll need some creative content. How do you suppose young teen girls will try and gain followers—especially followers like teen guys and unwittingly, older pedophiles?

Since the videos play automatically upon opening the app, the viewers have little control over what they see (and what they can never un-see).

Since parents and guardians need to be on the front line of what their kids are doing (and seeing), it's time to ask them what they think about IGTV, and if it's worthy of their online time.

Karen Farris served in the crisis pregnancy ministry — traveling thousands of miles and speaking to over 10,000 students about their life choices — for nearly a dozen years. She became a grant writer and helps find resources for projects that serve those in poverty, mainly children. She's been a blogger since 2010 — Friday Tidings — sharing stories of faith, life, and purpose to give hope in a hurting world.