January / February 2010
Social networking is a term that many of us will have heard more than once, but as parents, how many of us really know what it means?
The results of a survey released this month by a popular discount voucher website make startling reading for parents. The research, which involved canvassing almost 1350 parents, revealed that 78 per cent of them had allowed children under the age of 15 to use social networking sites such as Bebo, Facebook and MySpace.
Almost half, 48 per cent, of those parents whose children used the sites admitted that they weren’t aware of what their children were doing online, and one-in-four said that they trusted their children to look after themselves online.
A third of the parents that did have some awareness of what their children were getting up to said that they hadn’t checked the privacy settings on web pages to ensure information wasn’t easily accessible by others. Many admitted that they weren’t aware that information could be accessed by strangers if it wasn’t kept in check, and of all the parents who had allowed their children to use social networking sites, just 11 per cent had checked all settings and actively looked through their child’s activity to make sure it was safe.
According to the research, the most popular of the main networking sites is still the ubiquitous Facebook at 79 per cent, quickly followed by Bebo at 77 per cent, MSN at 73 per cent and MySpace at 66 per cent. Twitter, which allows its users to instantly send and read 140-character messages known as ‘tweets’, came in at 53 per cent.
Protective measures
So how do you ensure that your child is protected while communicating online with the vast and, for the most part, anonymous social networking community?
•Help your children to understand what information they should keep to themselves. Tell them why it’s important to keep information about themselves, their family and friends to themselves. Information such as their full name, address and phone number, as well as financial information such as bank or credit card numbers, is also private. Advise your child to choose a screen name that won’t give away too much personal information.
• Use privacy settings to restrict who can access and post on your child’s profile or website. Some social networking sites have strong privacy settings and you should show your child how to use them in order to limit who can view their online profile. Explain to them why this is important.
• Explain to children that they should post only information that you and they would be comfortable with others seeing. Even if privacy settings are turned on, some of your child’s profile may be seen by a broader audience than you’re comfortable with. Encourage your child to think about the language used in a blog and to think before posting pictures and videos.
• Remind your children that once they post information online, they can’t take it back. Even if they delete the information from a site, older versions may exist on other people’s computers and be circulated online.
• Know how your children are getting online. Increasingly, youngsters are accessing the internet through their mobile phones. Find out about what limits you can place on your child’s phone. Some companies have plans that limit downloads, internet access and texting. Other plans allow kids to use those features only at certain times of day.
• Talk to your kids about bullying. Online bullying can take many forms, from spreading rumours online and posting or forwarding private messages without the sender’s authority, to sending threatening messages. Tell your children that the words they type and the images they post can have real-world consequences. They can make the target of the bullying feel bad, make the sender look bad and, sometimes, can have legal consequences. Encourage your children to talk to you if they feel targeted by a bully.
• Talk to your kids about avoiding sex talk online. Recent research shows that teens who don’t talk about sex with strangers online are less likely to come in contact with a predator.
If you’re concerned that your child is engaging in risky online behaviour, you can search the blog sites they visit to see what information they’re posting. Try searching by their name, nickname, school, hobbies or the area in which you live.
For younger children, there are a series of additional steps that parents should consider taking:
• Keep the computer in an open area such as the kitchen or family room so you can keep an eye on what your kids are doing online. Use the internet with them to help develop safe surfing habits. Consider taking advantage of parental control features on some operating systems that let you manage your young ones’ computer use, including what sites they can visit, whether they can download items or what time of day they can be online.
• Sign up for and use the same social networking spaces that your kids visit. Let them know that you’re there, and help teach them how to act as they socialise online.
• Review your child’s friends list. You may want to limit your child’s online ‘friends’ to people your child actually knows and is friendly with in real life.
• Understand sites’ privacy policies. Sites should spell out your rights as a parent to review and delete your child’s profile if your child is younger than 13.
So what is social networking?
Social networking encompasses many internet-based tools that make it easier for people to listen, interact, engage and collaborate with each other. Social networking platforms such as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, blogs, message boards, Wikipedia and countless others are catching on rapidly.
People use social networking to share recipes, photos, ideas and to keep friends updated on literally every aspect of their lives. In many cases, people can use social networking tools from mobile devices, such as Blackberries and iPhones, as easily as from a PC or Mac.
By its very nature, social networking is interactive. You can tell anyone that you want to talk to - and that wants to listen to you - anything about your opinions and
experiences—and vice versa - through blogs, Facebook pages, videos and even 140-character messages called ‘tweets’. Users can also build communities based on common interests, causes and concerns.
Social networking is instant, vast, very personal and potentially anonymous. It is extremely popular, particularly among youngsters, and parents need to be aware of the many dangers which social networking sites can pose. They should also know which elements of these networks their own children prefer and – as far as possible - who they are communicating with and the nature of what is being said.