For those not familiar with Yik Yak it is basically an anonymous twitter that is popular on college campuses. From the sunny campuses of California to the snow covered Eastern universities, this app has become the unofficial news feed of college life.

It has become controversial and some colleges have banned it. It also seems to have become popular with recovering helicopter parents. At least this prescription is better than going to college with your child.

Spying on College Life, via Yik Yak

I’m a recovering helicopter parent with an only child who is now in college. The transition for her has been wonderful, almost seamless. For me, not so much.

I’ve tried to show some self-restraint. I tapered off my obsessive checking of her phone-tracking app after the first week or so. I resisted the urge to call or text her first. I curtailed my gratuitous offering of advice on everything from laundry to class selection. I let her go.

And I was pretty miserable as a result. I missed having her at home, but there was also a less noble reason — after 18 years of knowing who her friends were, befriending her friends’ parents, getting to know her teachers and school and curriculum, and knowing a good bit about the rest of her life as well, I was out of the loop. As any involved parent will tell you, that is a painful place to be.

Then I discovered Yik Yak. Now I feel better.

I know I’m not supposed to. Yik Yak is a free app that lets anonymous users write on a scrolling feed that is geofenced, allowing only people within a limited range (say, a college campus) to post. Any time social media is blended with anonymity, trouble and ugliness are inevitable. And so it is with Yik Yak. At barely a year old the app has not only become popular on college campuses, but has also been roundly condemned by many parents, educators and others. Some campuses have moved to ban it. Eric Stoller, writing in Inside Higher Ed, called it “a drug-fueled rave filled with miscreants.” “Fairly disgusting,” he concluded.