Decoding your teenager's phone: a parents' guide to slang, emojis and safety

As NE20 families head back into the school term, new research is putting numbers on something many parents already feel: a growing distance between what our children say online and what we actually understand.

The issue has rarely felt more pressing. Late last month, Meta agreed to pay up to $17.1 billion to settle claims brought by 47 US states and the District of Columbia, which accused Facebook and Instagram of designing their platforms to be addictive and unsafe for young users. As part of the deal, Meta must introduce stronger age verification and parental controls, and the case followed a separate New Mexico ruling that found the company's own internal reviews had flagged millions of pieces of child sexual abuse material. It's a US settlement rather than a UK one, but it lands at the same moment UK regulators and parents are asking harder questions about what children actually encounter, and say, on their phones.

A study commissioned by Tesco Mobile found that 77% of parents are worried about their child's online safety, yet admit they don't fully understand the language their children use to communicate. More than half (53%) say they feel confused by their child's messages at least once a week, and 84% say slang simply moves faster than they can keep up with. Most tellingly, 57% say that not understanding the lingo makes it harder to spot when something might actually be wrong.

There's also a clear generational divide. While 93% of Gen Z parents feel confident reading their child's messages, that drops to just 38% among Baby Boomer grandparents and carers, and to 34% among parents aged 65 and over.

The subject has stayed high on the agenda since Netflix's drama Adolescence aired last year, which explored how ordinary-looking emojis and phrases can carry meanings that go completely unnoticed by the adults around a child. Online safety groups, phone monitoring services and language researchers have all published their own glossaries in response. We've pulled together the most useful parts of that advice here, drawn from several of those sources, for anyone starting the school year with a new phone in the house or just wanting to get up to speed.

The frequent slang

Most of what turns up on a teenager's phone is exactly what it looks like: ordinary chatter dressed in the language of the moment. It changes constantly, but a good chunk of what's doing the rounds nationally right now includes:

• No cap – no lie, I'm being serious
• Bet – agreed, will do
• Mid – average, unimpressive
• Rizz – charisma, especially the ability to attract someone; "W rizz" is good at it, "L rizz" is not
• Delulu – delusional, usually said self-mockingly
• Bussin' – really good, especially food
• Ick – a sudden feeling of being put off someone
• Ate – did something really well
• Aura / aura farming – building up a cool, confident reputation
• Brain rot – low-quality content consumed for too long, or the state of mind it causes
• Crash out – to lose your temper or have a meltdown, often used self-deprecatingly
• Glazing – over-praising someone, usually to the point of embarrassment
• Looksmaxxing – trying to improve your appearance, often used jokingly
• Standing on business – following through, being serious about something
• Lowkenuinely – a blend of "lowkey" and "genuinely", used to say something sincerely but casually
• Washed – past your best, no longer relevant or skilled at something
• Clock it / clocked – to notice or call out something about someone
• Rent free – something you can't stop thinking about
• Hits different – feels notably better or worse in a particular context
• Main character energy – acting confidently, as if you're the star of your own story
• NPC – used to mock someone for acting robotic or unoriginal, after video game "non-player characters"
• Fit – outfit also sometimes used to mean "attractive"
• FOMO / JOMO – fear of missing out, and its opposite, joy of missing out
• Unc / "unc as an unc" – teasing someone for acting older or more out of touch than they are
• -maxxing (as in looksmaxxing, jestermaxxing) – a suffix meaning to push something to the max, usually appearance or personality
• Mogged / mogging – being outshone or overshadowed by someone else
• Cooked / cooking – "you're cooked" means you're in trouble or did badly; "you cooked" means you did brilliantly
• Chopped – unattractive, usually said teasingly
• Lock in – to focus hard and commit to something
• Tea – gossip
• Flex – to show off
• Pick me – calling out someone seen as seeking attention or approval, especially by putting others down
• Chat – used to address an imagined audience, as if narrating to viewers ("chat, is this real?")
• 67 / six-seven – a nonsense meme number with no fixed meaning, used purely as a joke or reaction
• Techy – skilled or good at something, among younger children
• Skibidi – largely meaningless, used by younger children mostly for comic effect
• Ts, pmo, icl – shorthand for "this s**t", "pi**es me off" and "I can't lie"

The abbreviations worth knowing

A lot of texting shorthand isn't new at all, it's just still in constant use and easy to forget once you're not messaging every five minutes yourself:

• BRB – be right back
• TTYL – talk to you later
• GTG / G2G – got to go
• IDK – I don't know
• P911 / P999 - parent alert
• NVM – never mind
• IKR – I know, right?
• WYD – what are you doing?
• HMU – hit me up (get in touch)
• WBU – what about you?
• JK – just kidding
• NGL – not gonna lie
• TBH – to be honest
• IMO / IMHO – in my (humble) opinion
• FR – for real
• OMW – on my way
• IYKYK – if you know, you know

These are almost always exactly what they say on the tin, used to keep a fast-moving group chat moving faster.

What the emojis actually mean

Emoji meanings shift constantly, and a symbol that meant one thing a few years ago can mean something close to the opposite today. A few of the ones most likely to confuse a parent:

• 💀 Skull – "I'm dead", meaning something was extremely funny, not a reference to death or danger
• 😭 Loudly crying face – usually laughing hard rather than actually upset; context and other messages around it usually make the difference clear
• 🧢 Cap / 🚫🧢 No cap – a lie, or "no lie, I'm serious"
• 💯 100 – full agreement or strong approval
• 🔥 Fire – something impressive or "cool"
• 💅 Nail polish – sassy confidence, "not bothered"
• 🤡 Clown – calling someone (including yourself) out for acting foolish
• 🫶 Heart hands – appreciation or affection, now used more than a plain red heart among younger teens
• 🙄 Eye roll – annoyed, unimpressed or sarcastic
• 🫡 Salute – respect, or ironically "understood, moving on"
• 👍 Thumbs up – can come across as blunt, sarcastic or even passive-aggressive among teens, rather than simply positive
• ✨ Sparkles – used to add emphasis or a knowing, slightly sarcastic tone to a phrase

If a message reads oddly, it's often just this generational gap in action rather than anything to be concerned about, and a quick "what does that mean?" usually clears it up in seconds.

Where it's worth paying closer attention

Several online safety organisations flag a smaller set of terms and emoji combinations that are used deliberately as a kind of code, precisely because they look innocent to an adult glancing over a shoulder. Broadly, these fall into a few categories worth knowing about: references to drugs or being under the influence, phrases connected to self-harm or suicidal thoughts (sometimes used as dark humour rather than literally), coded ways of describing sexual activity, and arrangements to meet someone in person who was first contacted online.

Rather than reproduce a full decode list here, which can just as easily teach evasion as awareness, the more useful step is knowing these categories exist and trusting your instincts. If a message or emoji combination feels out of place for the conversation, that instinct is usually worth following up gently rather than dismissing. Organisations such as Internet Matters (https://www.internetmatters.org/resources/text-dictionary/) publish fuller, regularly updated glossaries for parents who want to look closer, and are worth bookmarking rather than relying on any single article.

Setting up a child's phone safely

A quarter of parents say they felt unprepared the first time they handed their child a phone, with screen time, cyberbullying and contact from strangers among the top concerns. A few practical steps make a real difference from day one:

• Set a passcode or biometric lock, and agree that it's shared only with a parent or trusted adult, never with friends.
• Review app permissions together before anything is installed, particularly location sharing and camera or microphone access.
• Turn on parental controls appropriate to your child's age, whether through the network, the device itself, or a dedicated app.
• Agree ground rules on unknown contacts, including not replying to unfamiliar numbers and never meeting someone in person who was first contacted online.
• Keep talking, not just monitoring. Every safety organisation we looked at makes the same point: children are far more likely to come to a parent with a problem if the relationship feels open rather than policed.

Several mobile networks now offer guided setup support and parental control options as part of getting a child their first phone, which can be a useful starting point if you'd rather not configure everything from scratch.

Getting support locally

Internet Matters offers free, independent advice for parents on all of the above. (https://www.internetmatters.org/) Ponteland schools and the local PCSO team are also a good first port of call for anything that feels like it needs more than a conversation at home, and anyone with an immediate safeguarding concern should contact Childline or the police in the usual way.

Half the battle, as ever, is simply knowing there's a gap to close in the first place.

Sources:

Tesco Mobile-commissioned parent research (via LBBOnline, Retail Times and BM Outdoor); Internet Matters; the Luna app's teen slang and emoji dictionaries; HuffPost UK; Axis.org's parent guide to teen slang; Slangwise; Gabb; Timily; Findmykids; Screenwise; Forgemoji; Rotten Tomatoes and Netflix Tudum (Adolescence); KPMG, Carphone Warehouse, the FCC and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (phone safety guidance).