Parents' Guide to

Amino - Communities, Chat, Forums, and Groups

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Common Sense Media Review

Patricia Monticello Kievlan By Patricia Monticello Kievlan , based on child development research. How do we rate?

age 15+

Social-networking communities work best for teens.

Parents Need to Know

Why Age 15+?

Any Positive Content?

Parent and Kid Reviews

age 15+

Based on 129 parent reviews

age 14+

Based on 174 kid reviews

Privacy Rating Warning

  • Unclear whether personal information is sold or rented to third parties.
  • Personal information is shared for third-party marketing.
  • Personalised advertising is displayed.
  • Data are collected by third-parties for their own purposes.
  • Unclear whether this product uses a user's information to track and target advertisements on other third-party websites or services.
  • Unclear whether this product creates and uses data profiles for personalised advertisements.

What's It About?

AMINO - COMMUNITIES, CHAT, FORUMS, AND GROUPS is an app that lets users access and contribute to communities about a range of subjects, including bands, books, genres, and activities. The communities around gaming, anime, K-pop, and horror are especially active, and users can join or create as many communities as they like. When users create an account and log in for the first time, they can browse a range of suggested communities and use the "Explore" tab to browse lists of communities curated by users and organized by subjects, such as music, technology, video games, and sports. When you tap a community, you can view its description, community guidelines, and the number of registered users in that group. Once you tap "Join Community," you can browse members' posts on the Front Page, check out posts from users you're following, and join or create public chats on a variety of conversation topics. You can add posts to your Favorites and share your Favorites through the Catalog feature, which lets users collect and organize related content for their own use or for others to browse. You can also follow individual users and other users can elect to follow you. You can chat through text, voice, or video formats and share your general location in your profile.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (129 ):
Kids say (174 ):

Equal parts internet chat room, social media platform, and fan art gallery, this network is a place for fans to share about the things they love, but there are privacy concerns and iffy content. Nicely, each community has its own guidelines that encourage users to be supportive and to keep their language clean, and most users abide by these standards. It's exciting for teens for find or even create a community focused on media or topics they love, and the language within the app invites users to "demonstrate your knowledge" and "join the conversation." However, there are definitely some privacy concerns here: You can follow users at will and others can follow you, and posting in a public community makes your post visible to any other user in that community. You can create closed communities, but teens will more likely gravitate toward the more established, more active existing groups. Since the chat feature can also include voice and video, and there are a mix of adults and kids using the app, parents should decide if their teen can use chat (and which type is okay). With their teen, parents should also make sure no location in included in their kid's profile. In terms of user-friendliness, it can be hard to navigate at first, so it's not initially super easy to fully jump in, but teens will get the hang of it with some practice. Ultimately, with some smart digital citizenship skills in place, teens can find a lively, positive digital space to connect with like-minded enthusiasts from around the world.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about content sharing and online privacy in Amino - Community, Chat, Forums, and Groups. What kinds of things are appropriate to share online? What aren't?

  • Discuss the importance of online etiquette. Why is it important to be nice when you talk to people online? How can you contribute to a positive online community?

App Details

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by

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