The latest Social Media App...

...that is becoming popular with NZ young people is BeReal. While this has been around for a few years over the last month or so its usage in NZ has grown strongly. Like any social media this app is not without its risks. If your child is using this (which requires them to be over 13) then please talk to them about some of the dangers and risks.

BeReal is a photo sharing app, where photos can be viewed for a 24 hour period. Depending on the privacy settings this can either be by friends only or more publicly.

BeReal notifies all users at a random time once a day that they have 'two minutes' to post what they are doing at that moment. It captures and posts both the front and back side of the camera, so followers can see what users are doing at that precise moment. Users don’t have to post on time, but they cannot look at their BeReal feed until they post for the day (and the app indicates to other users that a post was 'late').

BeReal is completely unique in its premise of explicitly asking people to post something at a certain time and denying people access to their feed until they post.

There are a few things that set BeReal apart from other Social Media apps:

1. Photos are unfiltered and cannot be edited. (You can retake a photo within 2 hours, however, the app will notify viewers that it is a retake.).
2. The app uses both the front and rear camera on the phone to take a photo of the person and their environment. This does lead to a risk of unintended things / people being in the image.
3. BeReal allows a photo to be shared in a 2 minute window each day (and this changes randomly in each geographic area). The idea is to capture a 'Real' image of what someone is doing rather than a staged one. The app then applies 'pressure' to ensure that you continue to post a new photo in this moving 2 minute window each day. The method used is that if you have not posted an image in the time window, you can not view and see images others have posted that day. This can lead easily to this app being a 'priority' activity.

As a parent I can very much imagine the 'I can't do that as I have to take my BeReal image right now and it can not wait' comments or reactions.

This 'random' time period would also allow someone viewing the images to over time build up a pattern of someones behaviour and locations visited.

While Social Media has it uses, it should never be at a stage where it runs our lives. This 2 minute window that changes each day (with the pressure to make sure you have your phone, have notifications on and do not miss it) can very easily step over this line. BeReal also has not parental controls (beyond having to be over 13 years old). Something to be very careful of.

Paul reminds us in the conclusion to his letter to the Philippians of a good measuring stick to use when looking at any Social media.

"Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." Philippians 4:8

Thank you to Alistair McKinnon, Principal of Emmanuel Christian School for raising this issue.