Most teens don’t use email much anymore. They are far more into instant messaging when they’re online and texting via their cell phones. This means that any parent wanting to monitor their teen’s instant messaging activity needs to use software that actually does that.
Sure, a parent could actually block instant messaging, but most parents aren’t going to want to go that far. They want to trust their teens and they know that forbidding something only makes it ‘forbidden fruit’.
Instant messaging is done either via chat rooms or by using special instant messaging software such as Yahoo Messenger or AOL Instant Messenger. Indeed IM software comes with new computers.
All IM clients come with the ability to block unknown users, which means only people on your teen’s contact list can get through. As a parent, you should make sure that setting is enabled.
