Wishbone is a polling app at heart. It pits one thing against another and lets you vote on how certain things make you feel. It features photos and whichever photo you select registers a vote. All the votes are tallied and you instantly see if you sided with the rest of the people using the app or not. You can tell very quickly that wishbone is geared towards young teen girls. The app features mostly fashion, celebrities, and food.
You might see a picture of a dinosaur and be asked, with emoji’s, if it would make you happy or scared. It may have a picture of Ariana Grande and Britney Spears and say who is the best popstar. The app pits types of food, types of pets, all different things against each other than asks you to state your opinion. There are comments sections for each of the posts but most of them are filled with people asking you to follow them. There’s actually very little conversation about what the post is featuring.
You create an account and are immediately asked to begin voting. Based on some of the earliest votes you get suggestions of people who you should follow. There are some geek type accounts and accounts such as “I love to read.” Most of them, however, are geared towards the younger girls. The app keeps track of how many votes you’ve cast and how many times something you posted has been voted on. I spent a couple days using the app off and on and I must say it felt rather silly.
What Parents Should Know
I wouldn’t say that this app is particularly dangerous. It’s more of a question of how much you want your child to be marketed to. There were obvious sponsored polls and after about every 12th vote you were shown a video ad. The ads were for everything from music player apps, to Twix candy, to some pretty adult oriented iOS games which I mentioned in an earlier post.
If I had to come up with negatives about this app besides advertising it would definitely be the materialism that it may promote. Much of what you’re voting for are high cost clothing or products and you’re often comparing them to something that may be considered cheaper or less fancy. If you seem to be concerned about your daughter having an entitled attitude I could definitely see how this app would contribute to that mentality
My advice is to use the app yourself for a little bit. Vote a few times on some polls look around on the app some and see what you think. Is it something your young daughter would enjoy? Could it be something that you would be concerned about them using? Whatever the case, be informed, your children depend on it.