As a parent, you feel a strong sense to want to protect your teenagers from all of life’s pitfalls. Often, you can refer to your own knowledge and experience to try to help guide them through life, but in today’s digital world, you might not always realize all of the risks or potential for catastrophe that’s lurking right around the corner.
You might remind your teens to keep an eye on their valuables when they’re in public, not leave their purse or cellphone lying around on a restaurant table when they get up, and so on – there’s all sorts of common sense stuff like that. But these days, there are risks that are new, evolving, and not as simple to understand.
One of the ways that a teenager can protect themselves in the digital world is by using a VPN.
A virtual private network is like a protective layer that they can put on their internet connection that protects them from many of the threats that lurk on the internet including people spying on your teenagers, tracking them, finding their location, or stealing their private data and information.
Choosing a VPN for Cellphones for Teenagers
Before we dive into the reasons that teens should have this extra layer of protection, here are some thoughts on how to choose the right VPN.
It can feel very overwhelming, there are so many to choose from, and there isn’t always a right or wrong answer. Some VPN providers are certainly much better than others, but your location plays a role, too.
Some countries treat VPN’s different than others, in fact, in some places they’re even banned (But this is rare – if you’re reading this right now – you won’t have any problems!)
The best VPN for Canada won’t necessarily be the best one for another country, and vice-versa, but sticking to a known and reputable VPN provider will mitigate any issues you could run into.
Why Teens Are At Risk Online
Teens are on their cellphones all the time, their entire lives are in those phones including banking information,
Teaching teenagers about the dangers of social media and not to overshare is one thing, but when they’re constantly on the go, visiting friends houses, using public WiFi on campus, traveling for school tips, and so on – they come across a ton of different access points to the internet, each one posing a unique potential threat!
Sophisticated attackers can infect public WiFi access points, and gain access to your teen’s private info, devices, and more.
A VPN is like a shield that makes it endlessly more difficult for prying eyes to snoop on your teenager’s interact activity.
In summary, a cellphone VPN is a good idea for teens because:
- They’re out and about often, putting them at greatest risk while accessing public Wi-Fi and a VPN protects them.
- Teens do a lot on their cellphones, and a cellphone VPN can protect their personal data.
Other Useful Reasons for Teens to Have a VPN
It’s not all about doom and gloom or protecting their privacy, there are some fun reasons to have a VPN too, and fun is important for teenagers!
A VPN for a cellphone can help your teen get around region-locked content, for example if you’re in Canada, it can give your teens and the rest of the family access to American Netflix, which as a lot more stuff to watch compared to the comparatively-smaller Canadian version of Netflix.
Also, if your teenager is doing research projects, there are certain sites that don’t allow access from all countries. They might need a VPN from America in order to access certain sites and research sources from Canada, so having a VPN can help your teenager with their studies and school projects, too.
