A Parent's Guide: Should Kids Use Snapchat? 2025 Update

Snapchat remains one of the most popular social media platforms for tweens and teens. It allows users to exchange videos and images—but unlike many other platforms, Snapchat’s content is designed to “disappear.” This feature often gives users a false sense of security, leading them to believe their posts are ephemeral. However, as with anything shared online, Snaps can resurface long after they’ve expired.

Any social media app can pose risks for kids, but Snapchat’s unique design requires some extra caution. Below, we break down what parents need to know and how to help their kids use Snapchat safely.

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What is Snapchat?

Snapchat is a mobile app for iOS and Android that lets users share photos, videos, messages and creative effects like filters, stickers and augmented-reality lenses. It started out as a simple way to send disappearing pictures to friends, but it’s grown into a much bigger social platform with features like:

• Stories that stay up for 24 hours
• Spotlight videos where users post short, viral clips
• AI and AR tools for playful or artistic effects
• Chats and group messages, which can now be set to disappear—or stay forever

That last part is new. Snapchat recently introduced Infinite Retention, a feature that lets users choose to save certain chats permanently. So while the app is still known for disappearing messages, it’s no longer true that everything automatically vanishes.

Even with disappearing content, kids should know that screenshots and screen recordings can capture anything they share. It’s an important reminder that nothing online is ever 100% gone.

Snapchat also builds in a few engagement features that keep users coming back:

• Snap Score, which adds up Snaps sent, received and stories posted
• Snap Streaks, a count of how many days friends send Snaps back and forth—now even available for groups

As of early 2025, Snapchat has around 460 million daily users and more than 900 million monthly users. It’s still one of the most popular apps among teens and young adults, and many open it several times a day.

Should Kids Use Snapchat?

Snapchat says users must be 13 or older to sign up, but it’s easy for younger kids to get around that rule. Whether Snapchat is right for your child depends on their maturity, your comfort level and how much you’re able to stay involved.

In recent years, the app has added more safety tools, like Family Center, location-sharing controls and improved privacy defaults for teen accounts, but it still poses challenges that make it better suited to older, more responsible users.

Here are the main things parents should be aware of:

1. Connecting with Strangers

The Snap Map is another feature to watch. It shows a user’s real-time location, but location sharing is off by default. Kids can choose to share their location with friends only, and there’s no way to share it publicly or with strangers. Recent updates now let parents see who their teen shares their location with, or even request to view it through Family Center, though your kid must approve those requests.

What Parents Can Do:

• Talk about why it’s best to only add people they know in real life.
• Turn on Ghost Mode to hide their location (Profile → Settings → “See My Location”).
• Check their friend list together once in a while and remove unfamiliar names.

2. Mature and Inappropriate Content

Snapchat’s Discover and Spotlight feeds are full of videos, stories, news clips and more, and not all of it suits younger eyes. Snapchat uses filters and algorithms to limit explicit content for younger users, but those systems are not perfect. Some borderline or suggestive material may still slip through. And because users can misstate their age in settings, these filters can sometimes be bypassed.

Ads and sponsored content are also part of what shows up in Discover and Spotlight. Snapchat’s ad policies aim to prevent inappropriate ads from being shown to minors (for instance, age-gated content or sexually suggestive ads are restricted), but children may still come across content that's borderline or mild without it being flagged.

What Parents Can Do:

• Double-check that your child’s birth date in the app is correct, so they receive the proper level of content filtering.
• Walk through the Discover and Spotlight feeds together and talk about what’s OK vs. what feels too mature.
• Use the “Restrict Sensitive Content” option in Family Center to reduce what your child might see, keeping in mind it won’t catch absolutely everything.
• Encourage children to come to you if they see something confusing and tell them they don’t need to fear getting into trouble, just to feel safe talking about it.

3. Disappearing Messages and Snaps

Snapchat built its reputation on disappearing messages, but that doesn’t mean everything truly disappears. While most Snaps and chats are set to vanish after they’re viewed, users can now save certain conversations indefinitely with a feature called Infinite Retention. Even before that, anyone could manually save a chat or take a screenshot.

Snapchat sends a notification when someone screenshots or screen-records a message, but that alert doesn’t undo the action. Once something is shared, it can be copied, saved or reshared elsewhere. That’s why the biggest risk on Snapchat isn’t just what kids post, it’s how quickly they post it.

What Parents Can Do:

• Remind kids that disappearing messages aren’t foolproof. Once they send a Snap, it’s out of their control.
• Encourage them to pause before posting and think about how they’d feel if the Snap resurfaced later.
• Use this as a chance to talk about digital permanence and how even “temporary” content can leave a lasting impression.

4. Social Validation and Pressure

Snapchat doesn’t just let users snap, it rewards them for doing so. Features like Snap Score (a visible count of snaps sent, received and stories posted) and Snap Streaks (the number of consecutive days users exchange Snaps) push kids toward constant engagement. In 2025, Snapchat introduced Group Streaks, letting streaks extend beyond one-on-one chats, so peer pressure can build within groups.

Losing a streak can feel like losing status, and kids often worry about “breaking the streak” even when they’re busy or forgetful. To make matters trickier, Snapchat lets users restore recently expired streaks in some cases. There’s a “Restore” button for eligible streaks, but only for a limited time, and only one free restore is allowed. After that, restoring a streak may cost money.

What Parents Can Do:

• Talk about how these numbers don’t define friendship or self-worth.
• Encourage breaks or “off days,” and let them know it’s okay to lose a streak if that frees them from stress.
• Help them spot when the app feels more like pressure than fun, and set limits accordingly.

New Safety Features Parents Should Know

New Safety Features Parents Should Know

In recent years, Snapchat has made progress on parental oversight. The biggest change is a built-in tool called Family Center, which gives parents more visibility into how their teen is using the app, without opening every message. It’s not a monitoring system so much as a safety window.

Through the Family Center, parents can:

• See their teens’ friends list and spot new connections.
• View which friends or groups their teen has chatted with over the past week (but not what was said).
• Turn on Restrict Sensitive Content to help limit mature material in Stories and Spotlight.
• Check the birth date linked to the account to make sure content filters work correctly.
• Disable My AI, Snapchat’s built-in chatbot, if they prefer that their teen not use it.
• Request to see their teen’s live location, or view who it’s currently shared with, though the teen must approve each request.

Snapchat has also started rolling out travel alerts, which can let parents know when a teen arrives at or leaves certain places, like home or school. These updates are still being introduced gradually, so not every family will have access yet.

How to Set Up Family Center

1. Open Snapchat on your phone and tap your profile icon.
2. Tap the Settings icon, then select Family Center.
3. Choose Invite Family Member and send the invite link to your teen (they’ll need to accept before you can connect).
4. Once connected, you can see their friend list, review recent chat activity and adjust Family Center settings together.
5. Inside Family Center, toggle Restrict Sensitive Content or Disable My AI, and explore location-sharing options under See My Location.

It’s worth setting aside ten minutes to walk through the setup together. Teens have to accept the invitation, and they can remove the link later, so making it a shared process helps build trust from the start.

Know the Limits

Family Center is a meaningful step forward, but it doesn’t replace open communication. Parents can’t read Snaps or chat messages, and the sensitive-content filter only applies to Stories and Spotlight. It won’t catch what friends send directly. For broader supervision, pair Snapchat’s tools with device-level settings like iOS Screen Time or Google Family Link, which can manage overall screen time and app access.

How to Make Snapchat Safer for Kids

Even though Snapchat doesn’t have a public feed like other platforms, there are still plenty of ways to make the experience safer and more positive for kids. Most of it comes down to settings and regular conversations.

Start with privacy:

• Go to Settings → Privacy Controls and decide who can contact your child. Set “Who Can Contact Me” to Friends Only, and “View My Story” to Friends Only or a custom list.
• In See My Location, turn on Ghost Mode to hide their location from others. They can still share their location with you through Family Center if you both agree.

Use Family Center regularly:

• Review their friend list and see who they’ve been chatting with in the last seven days.
• Toggle on Restrict Sensitive Content to reduce exposure to mature material in Stories and Spotlight.
• Check that their birth date is accurate. This affects the kind of content Snapchat recommends.
• Consider disabling My AI if you’d rather your child not interact with the chatbot.

Talk about screenshots and saving:

• Explain that Snaps and chats can be captured with a screenshot, saved or recorded, even if they disappear in the app.
• Remind them that nothing online is ever truly gone, and that’s why pausing before posting is so powerful.

Encourage open conversations:

• Ask how they use Snapchat, who they talk to, and what they like about it.
• Keep the focus on curiosity, not control—the more kids feel trusted, the more likely they are to bring up things that make them uncomfortable.
• Revisit these settings together every few months. Snapchat updates its features often, and staying current helps keep everyone on the same page.

Is Snapchat Right for Your Family?

Snapchat’s design comes with unique risks, especially for younger users. Parents should weigh their child’s maturity, ability to handle explicit content and understanding of digital footprints before allowing them to use the app.

For older, responsible teens, Snapchat can be a creative outlet and a fun way to connect with friends—provided it’s used thoughtfully. Regardless of your decision, keeping the conversation open about social media habits is key to fostering a healthy relationship with technology.

If you’re looking for a safer way to connect online, check out the Kinzoo app. It’s free to download and offers a secure space for kids and families to stay in touch through fun games, activities, and video calls.

Editorial credit: XanderSt / Shutterstock.com

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