What is the limit on how many teen boys can pursue a physical relationship with a teenage girl? When you were in high school, how many youths attended? Two hundred? Four? How many were of the opposite gender, and how many approached you to date? Let’s say, per year? 

Four? Eight? Much more, or less? 

Romantic, or generally intimate relationships, are an integral part of the human species, which youth must learn to navigate. “How should I tell him no? Do I let him down easy?” Or the opposite, and she or he will be faced with an impressive, unending waterfall of chemicals that drowns out all reason and sense. There is, after all, a reason why Romeo and Juliet stories have their place in human civilization. 

But what if the number was sixty? Sixty teen boys with adults, contacting your daughter every day and telling her how pretty or how wonderful she is? 

Jada, a sixteen-year-old girl from Manhattan, told the New York Post that while on what is advertised as a “Friendship app" called ‘Wizz’ (like Tinder, but for kids!), she sometimes gets over sixty notifications a day. In her words: "It’s basically Snapchat on Steroids.” These notifications range from more typical remarks like “I think you’re really pretty” to explicit comments and requests. 

‘Wizz,’ and other so-called “friendship apps” are places where children –strangers– as young as twelve can swipe left or right as on Tinder. The New York Post and The Hill are both outlets that have reported on adult men who have posed as teens, only to later sexually assault girls as young as eleven by men in their twenties or later. It’s not a one-off, either. The list is too long and abhorrent for me to include here. The Wizz app was briefly taken down from app stores, but later reappeared with more safety features. Though it’s not like there isn’t already an incredible abundance of other friendship apps. 

Over 180 reports have been submitted to the Canadian Center for Child Protection in the last year and a half – those are, of course, in Canada. In the article for the New York Post, psychologist Jean Twenge said, “Kids and teenagers are always looking for workarounds to do adult things, and this app seems to make it easy.” It’s not like this is a new issue either, as these apps originated with ‘Tinder for Kids’ years ago. There have even been congressional movements to do something about it, but the apps still exist, and children are still sharing not just private messages with each other, but like Jada from Manhattan said, “It is like Snapchat on steroids."

Just like Snapchat, kids can send each other bad… "bad,” pictures, and request them from others. 

The first time I came across this topic was from news, YouTube ‘ShoeOnHead’, who did her own deep dive, beginning with “The Hill" article titled: "Wizz, the Tinder for kids app exposes kids to predators. Congress must act.” 

ShoeOnHead laughed,

“Congress? Half of Congress is probably on this app!” 

To her point: the House Ethics Committee recently released a report going back two decades, which includes nearly thirty investigations into sexual misconduct of its members, and the trouble that was given by some of Congress into getting the Epstein files released, or even Congress punishing the sexual abusers listed in the files. 

How many girls or boys approached you, Dear Reader, when you were in High School? I can tell you with certainty, even when it was one, I myself was racked with pressures and choices. But something like twelve girls? Or twenty in a year? How much focus or acute deliberation can be given to that many over the course of a year? Some of them pressuring sexual exchanges, some of them pressuring my time, attention, and affection and some that need to be turned down over time or immediately and some that should require adult intervention – but teens are not always the most thoughtful. 

But sixty? Sixty in a single day, every day – and it's not inside a high school where you generally know that the people that they may be seeing and dating are other fumbling teenagers – but outside, eternally without adult supervision and oversight. That any one of those internet ‘kids’ they could be chatting with is a horrid human being. Parents should send their kids to summer camps and get them included in activities to help them engage in healthy ways with children their own age. Once more, stress is given that: technology is like a “social” metalworking shop, where everything is dangerous around the children, and without adult supervision, anything can mentally maim children, or even, regarding predators, do far worse physically.

Tablets and phones looked at in the dark, for minutes or hours, directly correlate to the 100% increase in near-sightedness in teens in the last ten years. A.I. use in schoolwork breeds mental sloth and fog and dulls the senses. Little kid games from app stores are built on gambling theory, and chat and picture-sharing apps for kids are a horrid place for deviancy. 

It's not “technology" itself which is harmful – I am an adult, I like video games, movies, and apps myself- but the distinction is that a child is a work in progress. They are ever-gardens which, if not monitored, can be twisted and changed by others, or let to grow into gray, foggy couch potatoes in need of bottle-bottom eyeglasses like my own. Children need to be tended and nurtured and technology, which is absolutely and always directly supervised, can lend to that eventual healthy and stable adult. 

Austin Petak is an aspiring novelist and freelance journalist who loves seeking stories and the quiet passions of the soul. If you are interested in reaching out to him to cover a story, you may find him at austinpetak@gmail.comOpinions expressed by columnists in The Daily Record are not necessarily those of its management or staff, and do not constitute an endorsement or recommendation. Any errors or omissions should be called to our attention so that they may be corrected. Contact us at news@omahadailyrecord.com.