What is Kik and should your child be using it?

Company claims as many as 40% of US teens are on the chat app - but after a series of scares, online safety groups urge caution

Kik, like the past, is a foreign country.

The mobile chat app of choice for 40% of US teenagers (according to the company) contains an entire version of the internet inside its virtual borders, but like those pesky high-frequency ringtones, Kik is largely inscrutable to people born before the turn of the millennium.