Kids are now using "codes" to hide things from their parents

Just as parents are catching up with technology, our children come up with new things to make our life more difficult: They are writing in “Codes”. Now it’s on us to figure them out! This article will cover some of them, such as: BIH, GNOC, AITR or W2M… If you don’t know what these mean, read the article!!!! Also, please share some of the ones you are aware and help others learn!

In the vast number of places kids can fall into trouble on the web, parents often find it challenging to monitor what their children are doing in cyberspace. This is particularly true as the web increasingly becomes more social.

Over time chat lingo has become a part of the norm when engaging in online conversations, however, these terms rarely remain stagnant as new web speak emerges. Keeping up with all those acronyms can be difficult for parents as try and monitor what their kids are doing, especially if their children actively make an effort to try and mask what they are talking about online. Social network monitoring service SocialShield has released a list of the top terms children are using online. In a press release emailed to Digital Journal, SocialShield’s list “sheds light on the latest lingo kids are using to hold illicit, risky or secretive conversations.” The list was released this past week and includes several ‘codes’ kids use that their parents likely don’t know – and should. According to SocialShield,

“These little-known codes are part of a new lexicon being formed by children—and those who might prey on children—to communicate with each other in ways that most adults wouldn’t understand.”

The list was compiled through an analysis of commonly “flagged” terms pegged by SocialShield’s cloud-based monitoring engines which pick out terms that might be risky, illicit or dangerous. SocialShield has categorized social media terms in six different categories which are: cyberbullying, warning of parents in the room, conversations sexual in nature, cries for help, drugs and drinking, and requests to meet in person.

For many years now teens have turned to socialization online as a way to meet up with their peers and interact. However, now that parents are friending their kids on Facebook and other networks, in their eyes, this may have crossed too far over the line of what’s cool. Consider a hangout or house where parents or other adults are constantly present, teens are more likely to go to hang out in places, well, where their parents aren’t.

In response to being connected to adults online, kids may actively seek ways to slip under their parents’ radar. For instance, recently an interesting trend emerged that indicated teens were migrating to Twitterin order to escape the eyes of the adults in their lives and try and increase their privacy in virtual spaces. Other teens that are posting under the eyes of their parents are taking a different approach by adapting new lingo that their parents are not versed in.

“Many parents think friending their child on social networks is enough to monitor their activities and protect them, yet time and time again it’s shown that it isn’t,” said George Garrick, CEO of SocialShield. “Most parents don’t have the time to keep up with the sheer volume of interactions or have the understanding of the online language to really get what their kids are saying or what people are saying to their kids. This makes it really easy for problems to go unnoticed,” said Garrick.

SocialShield says the more parents connect with their kids on networks, the more frequently new terms pop up. A sampling of the top ‘coded’ terms highlighted by SocialShield in each of their six categories included:

Cyberbullying Terms: BIH (“Burn In Hell”); GKY (“Go Kill Yourself”); 182 (“I Hate You”)
Warning of Parents/Adults Nearby: POS (“Parent Over Shoulder”); AITR (“Adult In The Room”); P911 (“Parent Emergency”)
Sexual Terms: GNOC (“Get Naked On Cam”); TDTM (“Talk Dirty To Me”); D46 (“Down For Sex?”) • Cries for Help: IHML (“I Hate My Life”); IHTFP (“I Hate This F–king Place”); PHM (“Please Help Me”)
Drugs/Drinking Terms: CRAFT (“Can’t Remember A F–king Thing”); UDI (“Unidentified Drinking Injury”
Meet Up Requests: MIRL (“Meet In Real Life?”); W2M (“Want To Meet?”); S2R (“Send To Receive” [Pictures]

Parents are best armed through educating themselves to keep up with current Internet trends. The terms listed are said by SocialShield to be text lingo parents should be aware of their kids potentially using. The service also continuously updates the program’s dictionary of terms as it scans social network interactions. Social Shield’s full list of terms:

Screen shot from SocialShield’s Facebook page of commonly used ‘secret words’ teens use on social networks that parents should be aware of

Kids are now using “codes” to hide things from their parents

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