Melanie, Author at Online Security for Parents

Kids are now using “codes” to hide things from their parents

February 6, 2012 by Melanie Leave a Comment

Just as parents are catching up with technology, our children come up with new things to make our life more difficult: They are writing in “Codes”. Now it’s on us to figure them out! This article will cover some of them, such as: BIH, GNOC, AITR or W2M… If you don’t know what these mean, read the article!!!! Also, please share some of the ones you are aware and help others learn!

In the vast number of places kids can fall into trouble on the web, parents often find it challenging to monitor what their children are doing in cyberspace. This is particularly true as the web increasingly becomes more social.

Over time chat lingo has become a part of the norm when engaging in online conversations, however, these terms rarely remain stagnant as new web speak emerges. Keeping up with all those acronyms can be difficult for parents as try and monitor what their kids are doing, especially if their children actively make an effort to try and mask what they are talking about online. Social network monitoring service SocialShield has released a list of the top terms children are using online. In a press release emailed to Digital Journal, SocialShield’s list “sheds light on the latest lingo kids are using to hold illicit, risky or secretive conversations.” The list was released this past week and includes several ‘codes’ kids use that their parents likely don’t know – and should. According to SocialShield,

“These little-known codes are part of a new lexicon being formed by children—and those who might prey on children—to communicate with each other in ways that most adults wouldn’t understand.”

The list was compiled through an analysis of commonly “flagged” terms pegged by SocialShield’s cloud-based monitoring engines which pick out terms that might be risky, illicit or dangerous. SocialShield has categorized social media terms in six different categories which are: cyberbullying, warning of parents in the room, conversations sexual in nature, cries for help, drugs and drinking, and requests to meet in person.

For many years now teens have turned to socialization online as a way to meet up with their peers and interact. However, now that parents are friending their kids on Facebook and other networks, in their eyes, this may have crossed too far over the line of what’s cool. Consider a hangout or house where parents or other adults are constantly present, teens are more likely to go to hang out in places, well, where their parents aren’t.

In response to being connected to adults online, kids may actively seek ways to slip under their parents’ radar. For instance, recently an interesting trend emerged that indicated teens were migrating to Twitterin order to escape the eyes of the adults in their lives and try and increase their privacy in virtual spaces. Other teens that are posting under the eyes of their parents are taking a different approach by adapting new lingo that their parents are not versed in.

“Many parents think friending their child on social networks is enough to monitor their activities and protect them, yet time and time again it’s shown that it isn’t,” said George Garrick, CEO of SocialShield. “Most parents don’t have the time to keep up with the sheer volume of interactions or have the understanding of the online language to really get what their kids are saying or what people are saying to their kids. This makes it really easy for problems to go unnoticed,” said Garrick.

SocialShield says the more parents connect with their kids on networks, the more frequently new terms pop up. A sampling of the top ‘coded’ terms highlighted by SocialShield in each of their six categories included:

Cyberbullying Terms: BIH (“Burn In Hell”); GKY (“Go Kill Yourself”); 182 (“I Hate You”)
Warning of Parents/Adults Nearby: POS (“Parent Over Shoulder”); AITR (“Adult In The Room”); P911 (“Parent Emergency”)
Sexual Terms: GNOC (“Get Naked On Cam”); TDTM (“Talk Dirty To Me”); D46 (“Down For Sex?”) • Cries for Help: IHML (“I Hate My Life”); IHTFP (“I Hate This F–king Place”); PHM (“Please Help Me”)
Drugs/Drinking Terms: CRAFT (“Can’t Remember A F–king Thing”); UDI (“Unidentified Drinking Injury”
Meet Up Requests: MIRL (“Meet In Real Life?”); W2M (“Want To Meet?”); S2R (“Send To Receive” [Pictures]

Parents are best armed through educating themselves to keep up with current Internet trends. The terms listed are said by SocialShield to be text lingo parents should be aware of their kids potentially using. The service also continuously updates the program’s dictionary of terms as it scans social network interactions. Social Shield’s full list of terms:

Screen shot from SocialShield’s Facebook page of commonly used ‘secret words’ teens use on social networks that parents should be aware of

Apps for Kids… There are more and more of them, but are they really good for our children???

February 4, 2012 by Melanie Leave a Comment

Nowadays the vast majority of people have smartphones, tablets or other mobile devices that enable us to access one of the millions of apps that are available. And a lot of parents have used these mobile devices to keep their kids distracted, make a long drive in the car more enjoyable or let them access some educational apps. Whatever the reason may be that we let our children “play” with these mobile devices, we have to be aware of the possible dangers of letting them do so. Be sure to read the article published on Washingtonpost.com:

How young is too young to use a smartphone? In a growing number of families across the country, infants and toddlers are deftly swiping and tapping away even as they wobble toward their first steps.

The swift adoption of tablets and smartphones has sparked an unprecedented explosion of software games, videos and educational programs aimed at the very youngest minds, dramatically increasing the amount of time these children are spending in front of electronic media. Experts estimate that tens of thousands of kid apps are offered on Apple and Google Android devices, with titles such as BabyPlayFace and Elmo’s Birthday.

That worries some educators and child-development experts who view the flood of baby and toddler apps with trepidation. They warn that children already spend too much time in front of TVs, DVD players and computers.

For children 2 or younger, all those screens can have a negative effect on development, according to a recent statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics. If you really want to help boost brain power, the best solutions can be found with unstructured play, the academy said.

“Kids need laps, not apps,” said Frederick Zimmerman, an expert on media and child health and the chairman of the Department of Health Service at UCLA.

Some harried parents say they rely on the devices to prevent their child from melting down in a restaurant or an airplane or a long line at the grocery. One in five parents uses a smartphone or tablet to keep children distracted while running errands, according to Common Sense Media, a child safety advocacy group.

For Paula Mansour of Falls Church, allowing her 2-year-old, Maggie, to play a few rounds of Angry Birds as she prepares dinner helps her keep the household running smoothly and stress-free.

She monitors Maggie’s smartphone time — and that of her 6-year-old sister, Kayla — and does not see the harm in short sessions on her Samsung Galaxy a few times a day.

Aside from Angry Birds, Maggie plays with Kids Doodle and ABC Views — apps that promise to help children get an early start with preschool skills. “She’s learning and having fun,” Mansour said. “I don’t see any harm in that.”

Kid-app explosion

Just about every category of learning is covered in Apple’s and Google’s app stores. Get your toddlers to trace letters with their fingers on one of dozens of apps aimed at budding writers. Baby Sign Language teaches infants the signs for cow, foods and other objects. Math Ninja offers drills on multiplication and division.

Want to read “Humpty Dumpty” to your newborn? The Nursery Rhyme app will do that for you. BabyPlayFace has been featured in Apple’s iTunes store, with 250,000 downloads. It teaches infants first words in different languages through animated baby faces.

Apple and Google tout their mobile devices as revolutionary tools for learning and fun — and helpful distractions for the modern parent. They promote Angry Birds and Cut the Rope as children’s games that consistently rank among the most popular apps.

“Every parent could use a hand. Keep up with your kids or just keep them busy with family-friendly iPhone apps,” Apple pitches to users on its iTunes store. Apple rates apps with a minimum age of 4. Apps on Google’s Android system do not have an age minimum.

There has been no definitive study that shows whether apps on mobile devices are harmful for youths. And although lawmakers and regulators have been seeking to strengthen federal rules that protect the privacy of children online, few have examined the rapid growth of mobile content getting in front of very young eyes.

Some educators are dubious of the educational promises espoused by app developers.

Zimmerman co-authored a report in 2007 that debunked marketing by Disney’s “Baby Einstein” DVD series touting early developmental benefits. He said it is too early to say that apps are any more effective at getting children ahead. The American Academy of Pediatrics agreed and warned against developers that advertise their products as “educational.”

More than a quarter of all U.S. parents have downloaded an app specifically geared for their child, according to a survey released this month by Common Sense Media. Children 8 and younger spend about 2¹ / ₂hours a day in front of a TV, computer or mobile device and about 30 minutes with books, according to the survey. That’s almost one hour more than the daily screen time for young children in 2005, the group said.

Interactive learning

Not every child-development expert is skeptical of mobile devices. Some note that smartphones and tablets offer children a far more interactive experience than parking them in front of the television. “The wrong way to think about this is not whether to turn it off or turn it on but about taking responsibility for what content gets in front of our children,” said Liz Perle, co-founder of Common Sense Media.

Sherri Richardson Burgan of Portage, Pa., is convinced that her iPad is making her toddler smarter. Two-year-old Colton won’t sit still to draw with crayons and wriggles out of his mother’s lap during story time. But on the tablet, Colton enthusiastically points to shapes, letters and colors and identifies them by name.

“A circle! I did it!” he cheers.

So, like scores of parents, Burgan has been on a frenzy downloading games, educational programs and videos for her youngest. Colton is usually on Burgan’s lap or at least nearby when he is on the iPad, so she does not put any limits on his time using the tablet.

The apps will “let him reach his full potential,” said Burgan, a stay-at-home parent with three older sons. “He got it right away. He knows how to turn on the iPad, find his favorite apps and get started.”

Kid apps are among the fastest growing in Apple’s store. BabyPlayFace founder Jacob Slevin said Apple sent a team to New York to meet him last week to help improve the app, which he hopes to expand into various baby body parts. Parents have sent him video testimonials from around the world, saying how much they love the app.

Slevin does not have children. He is not an educator. But he did help his younger sister with speech therapy exercises, and he is a tech enthusiast who sees no limit to the potential of apps.

“My pediatrician is now a consultant for us and is replacing all the silly toys in his waiting room with iPads,” he said.

But before one tosses out toys for tablets, parents should remember that nothing beats real-life learning, said Howard Gardner, a professor of cognition and education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

And parents are modeling their own smartphone addictions to a whole generation of children growing up with apps, he said.

Gardner’s advice for those parents who want to get their kids ahead: walks in the woods, visits to museums and building with tinker toys. “You can’t replace the human imagination,” he said. “There’s no app for that.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Apps, Mobile Devices

Top 10 Tips for Online Game Safety

February 3, 2012 by Melanie Leave a Comment

Our children are growing up in an age of technology. As we all know there are many benefits to it, but unfortunately some downfalls as well… If your child is into all the new technologies, chances are they will participate in online gaming. Be sure to read these tips to protect your kids – and feel free to share with us how make sure your kids are safe! Here are the top 10 tips according to Gametheoryonline.com:

At first glance, the Internet’s online virtual world seems like a vast, untamed frontier. That’s not a bad comparison. The ‘net is a wondrous and hugely useful tool for learning and entertainment, including playing games, but it can also be a pretty rough place for kids to dwell if they don’t stay within certain boundaries.

Simply forbidding your child to go online is not an option either: The Internet is an extremely important reservoir of knowledge, and is as culturally and materially relevant as televisions, phones and libraries in a modern sociological context. Rather than attempt to ban online usage, parents should instead establish safe browsing habits in their home and instill them in their children as soon as possible.

When we prepare our kids for the outside world, we tell them not to take presents from strangers, and to look both ways before crossing the street. In the online world, the same common sense rules apply. Here and 10 hints and tips for online gaming safety that can help you keep kids safe while enjoying their favorite free, downloads and massively multiplayer online (MMO) games, not to mention ensure a more enjoyable Internet multiplayer experience for all.

Never Share Personal Data and Information Online: This is one of the most important keys to helping kids stay safe on the Internet (and it’s a good bit of advice for adults, too). Parents should warn their children that personal information such as name, address, age, etc. should never be given out to strangers through email, chat clients, instant messages or any other means. Birthdays, locations and personal preferences can all be used to facilitate fraud or identity theft, while criminals, thieves and sexual predators can also take advantage of personal info to plan crimes, locate victims and fool unsuspecting innocents. Bear in mind: Even a seemingly innocent status update on Facebook, Twitter or a favorite MMO about your impending trip to Hawaii can act as a billboard to potential robbers, letting them know when you’ll be away and your house and valuables left unguarded.

Monitor Computer Time and Usage: By placing computers or consoles in public home areas such as the living room, and spending time together online playing games, parents can get a better idea of their kid’s browsing habits and hangouts. It’s much harder to hide unhealthy activity when you’re familiar with children’s preferences and preferred venues, and able to keep an active eye on their PC or video game system usage patterns.

Employ Kid-Friendly Internet Web Browser Add-ons: Add-ons (downloadable programs) for popular web browsers such as Internet Explorer, Chrome and Firefox, e.g. KidZui and Glubble, can quickly be installed to make Internet browsing safe and fun. These add-ons – which can filter questionable sites and videos, block inappropriate online content, and limit access to parent, teacher and educator approved resources – are easy to find, simple to use, and give parents peace of mind while their kids browse the Internet. As children mature and learn better online habits, switching back to regular browsing is as simple as inputting a password.

Set Time Limits: Especially for very young children, it’s a good idea to establish specific times when computer usage is allowed, preferably when parents can keep an eye on what’s being done. Generally, kids and young teens shouldn’t be on the computer when the rest of the family is asleep, especially on a school night, or using it for hours on end when they should be doing homework instead. Thankfully, most Mac and Windows PC operating systems allow you to set hours on which certain users are permitted to use the computer. If said user tries to gain access during a forbidden hour, he or she will be barred and logged out automatically. Setting specific time limits can also foster healthy dialogue amongst parents and kids, helping all encourage a healthier lifestyle and better balance of leisure activities.

Educate Yourself: There are a great deal of free online games, virtual worlds and multiplayer gaming amusements on the Internet, but not all of them are appropriate for kids. As ever, an ounce of prevention outweighs a pound of cure, as firsthand knowledge is a parent’s most powerful tool in the battle to enable Internet safety and promote healthy online gaming habits. So do yourself a favor: Get to know what your child is playing, and familiarize yourself with the game’s safety rules. Most online virtual words have a “For Parents” section that outlines moderation policies, and some online games even let parents hook up their own accounts to their kids’ accounts so that parents can moderate playtime. Learning more about your children’s favorite games won’t just better equip you to handle the challenges that come with online gaming. It also provides a ready excuse to spend time with your kids over a positive bonding activity that all can enjoy, and better understand their personal preferences, motivations and interests.

Talk About Safe Online Spending: Many digital diversions from MMOs to virtual worlds and free to play online games offer special items and exclusive levels for a small, optional fee on the back-end. (These bite-sized digital impulse buys, known as “microtransactions,” are primarily how most free online games fund their projects). Talk to your kids about online spending, and make sure they understand both how it works, and that they need your permission before making purchases.

Use Parental Controls: Most PCs, Internet browsers and video game systems offer easy-to-use Parental Controls software settings that can restrict a child’s usage of these devices and help keep them away from unsightly or questionable content. Check your PC’s control panel, or your web browser or video game console’s Settings and/or Preferences for more information on these features.

Supervise Online, Multiplayer and Real-World Interaction: The Internet is remarkable in that it lets us make friends from around the world, and connect and play with them in real-time. Occasionally, luckier players even get to hold a real-life meeting with the buddies they make online. These meetings are a thrill, but they should never happen without a third party at-hand to make sure everything turns out safe – and that advice extends to adults meeting online friends for the first time, too. Should you wish to avoid strangers entirely, many games also provide options to turn off voice and text chat, and limit online play to pre-approved friend lists. Suffice it to say that in many cases, levels of online multiplayer interaction, and resulting real-world contact, can be custom tailored to your personal level of comfort. Any instances of questionable, immoral or abusive online behavior can also be reported to online moderations and authorities, who provide in-game supervision.

Investigate Digital Gifts and Suspicious Activities: Online shopping lets us order cool stuff from around the world, including virtual goods that only exist on the computer and thousands of real-world treats that can be sent to friends using retailers like Amazon.com. But if your child suddenly starts receiving odd messages, communications at strange hours and/or email from strangers – let alone packages from unfamiliar addresses or gift boxes from online stores without first consulting you about a purchase – it’s best to look into the source. Caution is, as ever, the watchword.

Above All Else, Communicate with Kids: Be open and talk to your child about his or her online adventures. Discuss the websites he or she likes to visit, ask about the friends they make, and address any questions or concerns he or she may have. Don’t be afraid to discuss difficult issues such as cyberbullying, heated arguments and handling queries from total strangers as well. Avoid being judgmental: The goal is to foster open and constructive dialogue that leads to better understanding and communication on both sides of the table. After all, when it comes to the Internet’s vast and uncharted online world, for both parents and kids alike, you can never be too prepared.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Online Gaming, Online Safety, Privacy

The pre-teen Facebook dilemma

February 2, 2012 by Melanie Leave a Comment

Facebook allows children above 13 to create an account… But we constantly come across profiles of people that are below that limit. While there are many heated discussions going on about the positive and negative aspects of Facebook and debates about it being a “good site” for kids, a recent survey showed that 78 percent of the parents either know or approve of their underage kids getting onto Facebook… What is your opinion? Is it right for parents to “lead by example” by breaking the rules??? Read the article from Pittsburghlive.com and tell us what you think…

In a recent girls’ group led by Melissa Sullivan at Eden Hall Upper Elementary School, the fifth-grade girls, ages 10 and 11, mainly wanted to talk about something they’re not supposed to know much about: Facebook.

Several of them already have profiles.

Pre-teens are supposed to be barred from setting up accounts, but reality differs. According to Facebook rules, users must be at least 13. But, when kids need only to fudge their birth date, getting on Facebook can be easy.

Sometimes, parents help their underage kids open an account, Sullivan says. Other kids sneak to open an account, sometimes under an alias, and hope their parents don’t find out. Sullivan sees many kids — more girls than boys — who are either on Facebook or trying to convince their parents to let them on. Parents often give in to the peer pressure because of older siblings and other family members on Facebook, and they don’t want their younger kids to miss out on the fun.

Not a great idea for all

Let the younger kids miss out, advises Sullivan, counselor at the Gibsonia school, where kids attend weekly lessons about bullying and other stresses. The dangers and downsides of Facebook far eclipse the benefits for pre-teen kids, she says, and even younger teens who join the social-networking site are opening a Pandora’s box.

“Are fifth-graders emotionally mature and equipped enough to handle the world of Facebook? My answer is a resounding no,” she says. “Even 13-year-olds, I think, are too young.”

Pre-teens and young teens tend to be impulsive and lack discretion about what is appropriate to post, Sullivan says. Think about your own school days and how mean kids can be, and add in the power of the Internet. That catty note you passed to a friend in sixth-grade now is an electronic post that numerous kids can see, resulting in humiliation for someone.

According to a recent study of more than 1,000 parents who have kids ages 10 to 14 living with them, 78 percent of the parents either knew or approved of their underage kids getting onto Facebook.

Jason Schultz, co-author of the study published in November 2011 in the “First Monday” online journal, says he wasn’t surprised by the results. However, he says that the minimum-age Facebook rule forces parents and kids to lie about their age.

The rule resulted from the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, which requires commercial websites to obtain parental consent before collecting data from children under 13. Facebook opted to avoid dealing with laws about parental consent and privacy protections by setting 13 as the minimum age, Schultz says.

Facebook officials in California did not respond to a request for an interview.

Who makes the rules anyway?

Parents, not the government or a website, should be deciding the rules for their children, and parents should be flexible, Schultz says. Denying kids Facebook access can create a power struggle.

“The more we can encourage parents to work with their children instead of against them when it comes to new technologies … over the long term, we’re going to have better parent-child relationships,” says Schultz, an assistant clinical professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley. “It’s very unfortunate that parents are put in this position. No parent wants to encourage their child to lie.”

Sullivan disagrees. She sees many students who are devastated by bullying or other stress from actions on Facebook. Parents should protect and simplify their children’s lives by not allowing Facebook use until the kids are teens.

She urges parents faced with the argument –“But everyone else is doing it” — to respond with: “I need to take care of you, and I know it’s difficult to be left out. If you’re a good, kind friend, people will want to be your friend whether you’re on Facebook or not.”

Missy Kurpakus of Sarver, has two teens — Kasey, 17, and Keegan, 16 — who are on Facebook. But neither of her younger girls — Corinne, 13, and Chloe, 11 — are allowed to join yet.

“I’ve just seen too much trouble with middle schoolers with it,” says Kurpakus, 44, who works as a physical education and health teacher in Natrona Heights. “Children will say very nasty things and post things that they shouldn’t.”

Jenifer Amundson, 45, of Greensburg, and her husband, Jon, allowed their daughter, Rachel, on to Facebook when she was still 12. But she was nearing the end of sixth grade, which is middle school in the Greensburg Salem School District. The Amundsons carefully instructed Rachel, now 13, about what is appropriate and inappropriate to post.

“As long as we, as parents, discuss the limits and expectations … Facebook can be used as a positive way of communication,” Jenifer Admundson says. She, herself, doesn’t use Facebook, the concept of which she calls ridiculous. “We, as adults, have to monitor and really be clear.

“Can you imagine those notes you used to pass around in middle school … being posted out there for all to see?”

However, Admundson cautions parents: After the Facebook genie comes out of the bottle, you can’t put it back.

“If my husband and I had to do this all over again, I would not have said OK to this,” she says. Her fifth-grade son, Reid, 10, is not interested in Facebook. “I truly don’t think these children are ready cognitively, emotionally and socially.

“Now, I could not take my daughter’s Facebook away.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Facebook, Online Safety, Parents

Have your teens seen porn?

February 1, 2012 by Melanie Leave a Comment

Take a look at the SCARY statistics we found on Unlockingfemininity.com. Would you have guessed these numbers?!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Pornography, Teens

FBI offers Web Safety Tips

January 31, 2012 by Melanie Leave a Comment

Unfortunety, our kids can be an easy target for predator’s. Often it comes down to parents recogniting a change in behavior to indicate that their child may have become a victim of online predators:

ABINGTON —

Marked increase in Internet use. Online chat shifting to a cell phone. A normally open child being quiet and secretive.

If parents see this behavior, they should sit up and take notice, as their child might be falling victim to an online predator, an FBI expert on cyber criminals said on Monday.

“It’s safe to say that there are people out there right now targeting children in our area,” said FBI Special Agent Scott Durivage.

His words came after a then-Abington teacher and coach targeted students last year on Facebook, was fired, and is now serving three years of probation after pleading guilty in Brockton District Court to three counts of sexual conduct for a fee.

The case against Jon J. O’Keefe began when the victims came forward and reported his inappropriate behavior.

Durivage said it is important for victims to “find someone they trust, and let them know time is of the essence because forensic evidence may not be out there long.”

O’Keefe, who was serving at the time as the boys’ tennis coach and substitute history teacher, was fired in May when students came forward after being propositioned by him.

The 31-year-old Waltham resident offered to buy students alcohol, said he would pay them for sex, and agreed to write a letter of recommendation in return for sexual favors, according to a police report filed in the court.

O’Keefe contacted the victims through Facebook and text messages, telling them to delete any messages from him after their conversations, authorities said. He originally claimed his Facebook account had been hacked.

Read the full article including the FBI’s web safety tips here.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: online predators, Online Safety

Teens join Twitter to escape parents on Facebook

January 30, 2012 by Melanie Leave a Comment

Children like their privacy. And often, we find that they are more tech savvy than their parents… So it’s rather unsurprising that they are trying to find new ways to regain their privacy. Check out this article posted by our Canadian neighbors… Do you think it is something only they are dealing with, or do we need to be aware of this in the U.S. as well?!?

Teens don’t tweet, will never tweet – too public, too many older users. Not cool.

That’s been the prediction for a while now, born of numbers showing that fewer than one in 10 teens were using Twitter early on.

But then their parents, grandparents, neighbours, parents’ friends and anyone in-between started friending them on Facebook, the social networking site of choice for many — and a curious thing began to happen.

Suddenly, their space wasn’t just theirs anymore. So more young people have started shifting to Twitter, almost hiding in plain sight.

“I love twitter, it’s the only thing I have to myself.cause my parents don’t have one,” Britteny Praznik, a 17-year-old who lives outside Milwaukee, gleefully tweeted recently.

While she still has a Facebook account, she joined Twitter last summer, after more people at her high school did the same. “It just sort of caught on,” she says.

Teens tout the ease of use and the ability to send the equivalent of a text message to a circle of friends, often a smaller one than they have on crowded Facebook accounts. They can have multiple accounts and don’t have to use their real names. They also can follow their favourite celebrities and, for those interested in doing so, use Twitter as a soapbox.

The growing popularity teens report fits with findings from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, a non-profit organization that monitors people’s tech-based habits. The migration has been slow, but steady. A Pew survey last July found that 16 per cent of young people, ages 12 to 17, said they used Twitter. Two years earlier, that percentage was just eight per cent.

“That doubling is definitely a significant increase,” says Mary Madden, a senior research specialist at Pew. And she suspects it’s even higher now.

Meanwhile, a Pew survey found that nearly one in five 18- to 29-year-olds have taken a liking to the micro-blogging service, which allows them to tweet, or post, their thoughts 140 characters at a time.

Early on, Twitter had a reputation that many didn’t think fit the online habits of teens — well over half of whom were already using Facebook or other social networking services in 2006, when Twitter launched.

“The first group to colonize Twitter were people in the technology industry — consummate self-promoters,” says Alice Marwick, a post-doctoral researcher at Microsoft Research, who tracks young people’s online habits.

For teens, self-promotion isn’t usually the goal. At least until they go to college and start thinking about careers, social networking is, well, social.

But as Twitter has grown, so have the ways people, and communities, use it.

For one, though some don’t realize it, tweets don’t have to be public. A lot of teens like using locked, private accounts. And whether they lock them or not, many also use pseudonyms, so that only their friends know who they are.

“Facebook is like shouting into a crowd. Twitter is like speaking into a room” — that’s what one teen said when he was participating in a focus group at Microsoft Research, Ms. Marwick says.

Other teens have told Pew researchers that they feel “social pressure,” to friend people on Facebook — “for instance, friending everyone in your school or that friend of a friend you met at a football game,” Pew researcher Ms. Madden says.

Twitter’s more fluid and anonymous setup, teens say, gives them more freedom to avoid friends of friends of friends — not that they’re saying anything particularly earth-shattering. They just don’t want everyone to see it.

…

Read the full story on The Globe and Mail

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Social Media, Teens

Facebook Safety for Kids

January 27, 2012 by Melanie Leave a Comment

Having anti-virus software, parental controls and other tools in place is a start to protecting your children from the evils on the internet… But there’s nothing more important than educating your children about the threats that are out there… Because no matter how hard you try, you can’t always keep an eye on them. Therefore, it’s best if THEY know what to do, and even more so, what NOT to do… Read the suggestions we found on Mother Nature Network:

Thanks to Facebook, “friend” has become a verb. It’s no wonder, then, that even the youngest children know about the social media site – and many who should not be already are a part of it. For that reason, and others, Facebook safety for kids has become an important topic.

According to a Consumer Reports survey published in the magazine’s June 2011 issue, more than one third of Facebook’s 20 million minor users (i.e. people under age 18) who used the site in the past year were younger than 13, the age in which you are allowed by Facebook to register. More than 5 million of these 7.5 million underage users were age 10 or younger. One million of these children were harassed, threatened or bullied on Facebook in the last year.

What makes these statistics more disturbing is the fact that parents seem ambivalent to the potential dangers. According to the study, just 18 percent of parents “friended” their child age 10 or under on Facebook, while 62 percent of parents were Facebook friends with their 13- or 14-year-old. Essentially, these children were online unsupervised and uninformed, said Paula Bloom, a clinical psychologist in Atlanta who blogs on Huffington Post, and frequently writes and speaks about social media.

“There are things [happening online] that parents don’t understand,” she said. “There have to be boundaries. You have to know what your kids are doing.”

What, then, are the best ways to keep your children safe on Facebook? Bloom offers these tips:

Be familiar with the site’s privacy policies. According to the Facebook Help Center’s page for parents and educators, children under age 13 in most countries are prohibited from creating an account. As Facebook knows how old a user is (if he or she enters the right birthdate, of course), the site has different default privacy settings for young users, many of which keep posts by users ages 13-17 visible within the “friends of friends” circle rather than visible to anyone on Facebook, the default adult user setting.

Keep the computer in a common area so you are able to see what is happening. Do not allow your child to Facebook chat with a webcam without an adult present.

Make sure you are on your child’s list of friends and that you can control your child’s circle of friends on Facebook. “Approve anyone who is going to be a friend of your kid on Facebook,” advised Bloom, adding that often, strangers can appear as “friends of friends” and the child can then think she must approve the friend request.

Recognize you will still not know all that your child posts on Facebook, as he can “hide” things from you. So “cultivate a relationship of openness,” Bloom said, which means talk frequently with your kids about Facebook safety, privacy, photo sharing and other online issues like cyber bullying. Do not lecture, Bloom added. “Don’t tell your kid; listen to your kid. We do too much talking.”

Get your child’s Facebook password, but tell her you will not use it unless you have probable cause. If she does not obey your Facebook safety rules, you can have her account deleted.

To keep your children safe on Facebook, remember that even though you are their friend on the site, you are their parent in real life, said Bloom. That means you set the rules even if your children balk. “Even if they don’t understand why you are doing something, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it,” she explained. “Tell them, `I’m doing this to keep you safe.’”

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Facebook, Online Safety

Spying on Teens

January 26, 2012 by Melanie Leave a Comment

There’s a fine line between wanting to protect your children and spying on them. Your children, especially your teenagers want their privacy – they THINK they are entitled to it… So while we as parents reason spying with the urge to protect our children, we often upset them and potentially jeopardize the trusting relationship we have with our kids.

How much spying is too much? There seems to be no right or wrong answer to this… Check out the article that was posted on Huffington Post about this issue:

How much, if ever, should we use technology to spy on our teens? According to Anthony Wolf, clinical psychologist and author most recently of “I’d Listen To My Parents If They’d Just Shut Up,” that question “is one of the most discussed dilemmas in teenage parenting circles.” The italics are Wolf’s.

I’m relieved to know that me and my tribe of post 50 friends with teens are not alone in fretting over this question. Before my son went on Facebook I had one condition: that he friend me so I could keep tabs on him. I’d warned him about the perils of the online world, including the fact that what goes on the Internet has the half-life of plutonium.

What I didn’t tell him, primarily because it didn’t really dawn on me at the time, was that Facebook and all the spokes in the wheel that radiate from this cyber supernova of connectivity (iChat, Google chat, texting, Skype, etc.) would give me extraordinary access to his private world should I choose to avail myself of it.

And the temptation is undeniable. When my son left a long iChat dialogue thread open on my laptop (emphasis on the words “my laptop”), I could not resist reading. I learned about several things he was doing on the sly. They were a little dicey but essentially age-appropriate. I, too, did them when I was his age. In fact, I had far more freedom than he did (another issue altogether). Still, the ability to peer into his world was an enticement to surveil him even more. And in that I’m not alone, either.

But what are the costs of cyber snooping on our kids, assuming they’re not being cyber-stalked or are cyber stalkers, or that nothing truly dangerous is going on? And what do we do with compromising information, whether it has to do with our child or someone else’s child? Does being a parent give us carte blanche to spy or snoop on our kids?

There are no right or wrong answers here, just a sea of subjective opinions as diverse as the parents who assert them. Some parents are control freaks. Others are more laissez-faire. Parenting experts, however, have some pretty clear consensual opinions. Wolf asks: “To what extent do you need to know about everything your child is doing in order to steer them in the right direction or to best protect them from harm? How much do you need to know in order to allow them the freedom and concomitant risk that enables them to navigate future situations better on their own?” It’s almost a rhetorical question.

“Kids that are hell-bent on bad behavior will usually find a way to engage in that behavior,” Wolf continues. And most parents will eventually find out about it in the real world. But “secret snooping has a definite downside. It is dishonest. And if our children find out — which they often do — they will very likely feel betrayed. It says that, in the adult world, being dishonest is okay, provided you have a good enough reason to be. If I could be convinced that sneaky snooping was a significantly useful instrument in a parent’s arsenal for protecting children from significant harm, then I might go along, reluctantly. But I don’t think it is.”

Wendy Mogel, clinical psychologist and author most recently of “The Blessing of a B Minus,” echoes Wolf’s sentiments. In a piece called “The Digital Lives of Your Kids: What Parents Need To Know” Mogel writes of the online world: “Our children’s lives are not like ours were. They’re not free to hang out at the corner drugstore or on the stoop or in a vacant lot. They have little privacy or downtime. They are scrutinized, measured and cloistered. But teenagers need to communicate and connect and express themselves freely. They need privacy and risk. They even need to make a few cheap mistakes before they go off to college.”

The value of the “cheap mistake” — indeed, even the blessings of a B minus, to coin the title of Mogel’s book — is often lost in today’s competitive and fearful parenting zeitgeist. But Mogel and Wolf both have good points. There is no room for what Mogel calls “the experimental floater life” or “a gentle truthiness” — two things we all got away with in our day — when an electronic eye is always peering overhead.

My son can’t get away with a white lie, for example (“Hey mom, can I get on Facebook? I don’t have any homework tonight”) because I can simply go online to Teacherease and instantly check the veracity of that statement. (“That’s not true. You have biology and geometry…”) I can also get real-time snapshots of his grades on every assignment and in every class, making report cards almost redundant.

Like most teens, my son loathes this. I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I revel in the instant access to his academic progress. On the other hand, I feel like a traffic cop sitting perpetually by the side of the road with radar gun poised. Is there an injustice here, even if the virtues to the parents are evident? And how might this effect my son’s ability to be self-reliant (the subject of Mogel’s first book “The Blessings of a Skinned Knee”)?

A recent New York Times article called “Cracking Teenagers’ Online Codes” explored this terrain in a profile of 34-year-old Danah Boyd, a hip “rock star emissary from the online and offline world of teenagers” who is also a senior researcher at Microsoft and a fellow at the Berman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard. “Children’s ability to roam has basically been destroyed,” Boyd told the Times. “Letting your child out to bike around the neighborhood is seen as terrifying now, even though by all measures, life is safer for kids today.”

Like Mogel, Boyd sees the Internet as the online equivalent of yesterday’s café or coffee shop, where kids should be able to congregate, hang-out, and share their grievances and passions — without parental interference. “Teenagers absolutely care about privacy,” she states. “Teenagers are not some alien population. When we see new technologies, we think they make everything different for young people. But they really don’t. Teenagers are the same as they always were.”

That might be the case, but those “new technologies” certainly make parenting different. The virtual environments in which teens socialize and learn about the real world are also vastly different, posing all sorts of other questions that are as psychological as they are cultural. In fact, if anything seems constant in this new electronic wilderness, it’s that parenting is still as challenging as it is rewarding — and there’s nothing virtual about that.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Online Safety, Teens