subject: Life Or Death: Safe Social Networking [print this page] By now we have all heard of some of the risks and consequences when there is a lack of safe social networking, especially by our children and teenagers. There are several things that kids can do and that parents can enforce that can ultimately mean the difference between life and death to a child. Unfortunately, there are children who have been abducted and killed and those who have committed suicide and have been beat up because of a lack of safe social networking.
One of the most serious risks online are online predators. Many kids are so eager for acceptance and validation in their own right, making them incredibly vulnerable to advances from predators, sexual or not. An astounding 20% of online teens claim that they have received unwanted sexual advances in their time online, according to the Crimes Against Children Research Center. It is always a good idea to protect childrens names, schools, phone numbers and addresses and to never post videos or pictures that could reveal where a child could be found.
Cyber bullying is a tremendous problem that stems from not practicing safe social networking. This can take many forms, including sending threatening or harassing texts, instant messages or emails, posting false information using another childs password or deleting and altering information from another childs social networking page. Social networking, when used responsibly, can be a very useful academic tool. However, it can quickly lead to problems with focus, school work and with paying attention. An unfortunate number of children, when they claim to be studying on a computer, are actually on social networking sites, emailing and instant messaging their friends. In one study this was found to happen 65% of the time, making grades suffer as the childrens social connections grow.
Any time that information is shared on the Internet, unfortunately there is always a risk of that information downloading all kinds of inappropriate or damaging files, viruses, spyware and other types of malicious scripts that can damage a computer. Teens and parents need to know all about safe social networking and how to do their best to protect themselves and their computers from harm. Kids need to know to always keep their personal, identifying information private, and they also should only add friends for safe social networking that they know in real life. Also, children should set their profiles to private and use a nick name that does not reveal their location, gender or age. Parents can help children with safe social networking by altering photos to remove identifying information, and kids should share photos only with people on their friends list.
