8
community
june14
2011
Kids and the Internet: Why We’re Really Going to Miss Facebook
By Diane K. Danielson
Life changes quickly online. It’s
not easy to keep up, but here’s the first
of a series of articles about what parents
need to know about kids and the Internet
in 2011.
Facebook
With 500 million users,
Facebook is not going away anytime
soon. But, remember MySpace?
Yeah, kids thought that was cool once,
too. Now that parents are flocking to
Facebook, the kids are already starting
to head elsewhere.
What we will miss most about
Facebook when it comes to kids are the
privacy controls; the requirement to use
real pictures (which prevents anonymous
trolling); the ability to block/report
people; and that it is basically a closed
network.
While some are moving on,
most kids will maintain a presence on
Facebook. This means we still need to
worry about kids cyberbullying, inviting
strangers into their networks and posting
inappropriate content and pictures.
But, for now, it is the safest alternative
provided you do the following.
Parental Tasks:
• Find out if your child is on
Facebook. Almost all teenagers and
nearly 1/3 of children under the age of
13 have profiles (many without their
parents’ knowledge).
• Have your child “friend” you
or a trusted adult on Facebook. You
bought the computer and/or smartphone,
so you get to make the rules.
• Make sure that they don’t
block you or put you in a “friend list”
from which they can hide information.
I personally have a “friend list” called
“See Nothing” that I use so certain
people can still be my “friend” but
literally see nothing that I post. They
probably assume I never use Facebook.
I also block others so that even if they
look for me, they will never find me.
Kids know how to do this, too.
• Check the Facebook account
on your child’s smartphone. Some kids
have resorted to creating duplicate
accounts. The one on their smartphone
is likely the one they use most.
• If they use Facebook on their
smartphone, encourage them to password
protect their phone. Other kids can grab
the phone and send out inappropriate
messages from your child’s account.
Mandate that they tell you the password!
Twitter
Last weekend, as I was searching
Twitter with regard to some town politics,
I inadvertently discovered that the local
high school students have adopted
Twitter as a form of communication.
Unfortunately, Twitter is much more
problematic than Facebook when it
comes to kids.
• Twitter can be accessed
from a normal cell phone as well as a
smartphone and/or a computer. This
makes it easier for everyone to use.
• As we’ve seen, kids send
some really bad messages by text:
inappropriate photos, messages intent
on bullying, and dumb things that would
cause a college admissions officer to
take pause. Now imagine that your
kids are making these texts public to the
world; and, that the world can comment,
forward them, print them out and even
start “following” your child.
• Kids can create accounts with
false names and hide behind avatars and
icons.
• It’s even more public than you
think. Google indexes tweets so they end
up in Google search results. Facebook
does not do this for personal profiles.
Missing Facebook yet? No? Then keep
reading.
While doing the town meeting
research, I noticed a tweet from a
local teen that was offensive enough
to question that child’s college
potential. Yep. Hope it’s not your
kid. Now in this teen’s defense,
they had attempted to use Twitter’s
privacy settings (unlike some of
their friends). Unfortunately, due to a
glitch that I’ve been working to sort
out with Twitter, that tweet is still
publicly viewable on certain search
engines.
Even with a protected account
that is set up properly, a child’s
name and picture, where they live
as well as the names and pictures
of the kids in their network are all
public information. A quick Google
search of the teen who authored
the offensive tweet revealed their
age, home address, more pictures,
interests and the fact that a sibling
has some disturbing URLs registered
to the parents’ home address.
users. Justin Beiber and Lady Gaga
have 9 million+ followers each. Sports
stars are all over it. Where the celebrities
go, the kids will follow.
• Explain that whatever they
send out on Twitter can be taken out of
context and made public even if they
use privacy controls. All it takes is a
technical glitch, an easy hack, or, more
likely, one angry friend taking a screen
capture of a tweet and publishing it to
the world.
• Discuss the importance of
not putting information with regard to
their geographic location. Twitter is not
meant to be a closed network. Strangers
can see everything.
• Join Twitter and follow them.
While you can and should do all
of the above, the best way to approach
kids about the Internet is always to talk
with your child about using common
sense online. This means that you
have to educate yourself about what’s
out there. That’s part of your job as a
parent. Sure, we all did dumb things as
teenagers, but we never wrote it down in
public or videotaped it and uploaded it
to YouTube. It’s time for parents to take
back control.
• You bought the computers and phones.
• You pay for the ISPs and wireless
services.
• You have the power to limit access and
develop boundaries.
Coming up next: How smartphones
can lead to dumb moves by even the
brightest children and what you can do
to prevent it.
Reprinted courtesy of the Cohasset
Mariner.
Diane K. Danielson is a new media
marketing consultant who specializes in
helping companies build social media
strategies into their business plans.
For more about Diane visit http://
dkdnewmedia.com.
Parental tasks:
• Find out if your child is on
Twitter. Twitter has 100 million
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Four
Vernonia
Girls
Selected for
Sate Softball
Tournament
Four Vernonia girls have
been selected to play on a girls
12 and under state tournament
softball team based out of St.
Helens. The girls went through a
try out on May 21 in St. Helens
and were chosen to be on the team,
along with 9 girls from St. Helens.
The girls are Pearl Cook, Paige
and Sarah Smith, and Cassidy
Whitton. The state tournament is
set for June 24 through June 26 in
Albany.
Vernonia’s Voice is
published twice each
month on the
2nd and 4th Tuesday.
Look for our next issue
June 28th.