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Plugged in kids and social media safety



__Kids on the internet__
Children are accessing the internet at ever younger ages. A study conducted in 2009 revealed that one in five children between the ages of 5 and 7 are accessing the internet without supervision by parents. When a child uses social media sites such as Facebook , [|Twitter] , or [|Youtube] , this can raise a variety serious safety concerns, from [|cyberbullying]  to the potential to be unwittingly groomed by pedophiles. Parents and guardians should be aware of the potential issues caused by children and social media, and constantly monitor and learn about the constantly changing digital landscape their children are accessing.



__**Various online media sites and offered privacy settings **__

The list of online social media sites grows each day, some of these sites include:


 * Facebook: Although children under 13 aren’t technically supposed to have accounts, studies show 38% of children on <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|Facebook are younger than 13] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. Recently Facebook has been rumored to be exploring the option of giving parents the ability to set their children up with accounts that are linked to their own accounts. With this option parents would be able to control who their children <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|add as friends and what apps they use.]
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Twitter: Twitter is another site that has a 13 and up age restriction, but many kids under that age have accounts anyway. Twitter does have privacy settings, allowing tweeps to have their account viewed only by approved users.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Youtube: Youtube also has a 13 and up age restriction. Youtube is a great place to showcase creativity, and has good privacy control options for posting videos. Youtube also has a lot of interesting, fun videos for children to watch. The downside is there are also a lot of “iffy” videos, and the comments sections can be very ugly. The following video describes Youtube's filter features:

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">media type="youtube" key="GMAj5PMzvsk" height="315" width="420"
 * Using Youtube's privacy settings and filters**

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; vertical-align: baseline;">__Online Predators__
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The Justice Department’s <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|cyber crimes section] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">is involved with all types of crime committed over the internet, the majority of their time is committed to combating online sexual exploitation of children. Depending on the number of agents needed at any one time, there will be between 30 and 200 FBI agents working nationwide to combat online predators. Peter Brust, FBI special agent in charge of Counterintelligence and Cyber Divisions in the Los Angeles FBI field office says this about online predators: “Based on my experience, the sexual predator online will try to become the confidante or friend, confessor of the victim. They'll go into Web sites, they'll go places on the Internet where they know maybe vulnerable children are located; for instance, chatrooms dealing with loss, chatrooms dealing with skateboarding, pets, mourning. They will go into these rooms purporting to be another kid, and they'll strike up conversations with children.”

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">In the year 2000, a study found that one in five kids (adolescents) had experienced unwanted sexual solicitations over the course of a year. That study was redone in 2005 and seemed to have a positive improvement; about one in seven had been <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|solicited at that point] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. However, not all of these solicitations are necessarily from adult predators, they also counted advances from other children. The number of adolescents who have received actual aggressive sexual solicitations is around one in twenty. Brust says about parental involvement in their children’s online activities: //“I'm surprised at the number of times I go to give school presentations or parent group presentations when the parents say, "I didn't know that; I had no idea that you could check the history of their online usage. I had no idea that my child was a member of this social networking site or had this screen name or had this profile." They just don't know. ...It's risk management. You can take a few simple steps to try to minimize that risk, such as communicating with your child.”//

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; vertical-align: baseline;">__Cyberbullying__
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Although many parents are quite concerned about online predators, they might not be aware of what some experts argue is a much bigger problem: cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is the use of the Internet and related technologies to harm other people in a deliberate, repeated, and hostile manner. Cyberbullying directed toward adults is known as “cyberharassment”. Parry Aftab, Executive director of wiredsafety.org says: //“Cyberbullying starts in second grade these days, as soon as they're interactive, which is becoming younger and younger with sites like// //<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|Webkinz] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> and <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|Club Penguin] //<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> //and kids using text messaging on cell phones and AIM at much earlier ages. It starts at six or seven these days. It generally tends to fall off at about the age of 14. After that, you may have cyberstalking and harassment, but it tends to be more sexually oriented; you break up with a girl or boy, you target them because you're unhappy. ...Those kind of things tend to be sexually oriented and much tougher…”// Only one in ten kids who are cyberbullied seek help from their parents or adults; a worrying statistic, as it can spiral quickly out of control. Many kids don’t tell their parents about the problems because they are afraid the parents will simply take away their technology.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Cyberbullying has been pointed to as the cause of fighting in real life, with 4.5% of kids questioned admitting online activity has caused physical altercations, and 15% of the kids questioned admitting they have <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|avoided school] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> because of online activity. Cyberbullying has even been pointed to as a cause for suicide in teens, in some situations. One of the best known cases of this is the 2006 suicide of <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|Megan Meier] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. Megan took her own life after being harassed on MySpace by the mother of a former friend posing as a teenage boy. Talk often to your child about cyberbullying, point out articles about the subject and attempt to open a dialogue.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">media type="youtube" key="r5h5iUV3ulE" height="315" width="560"
 * Parry Aftab, lawyer and director of wiredsafety.org, talks about cyberbullying.**

=__Online media presence and privacy__=

It is important for parents and educators to keep reminding kids that anything they say or do on the internet will never go away. This is something that can be discussed with children from a very early age, and should be discussed frequently throughout childhood. Even if we delete something we have posted, it is still in databases, or someone may take a quick screen shot. Information is disseminated with increasing rapidity, once it's out there, it can never be taken back. The American Academy of Pediatrics suggest the conversations be frequent and ongoing, offering these points:


 * Anything sent over the internet or via text can be quickly be shared with the entire world. It is important to use good judgement in any online interaction, and to keep the privacy settings of their social media sites set appropriately.
 * Discuss what you mean by "good judgement", and discuss what may happen if they don't use good judgement. (Legal difficulties, identity theft, etc.)
 * Explain that you will be monitoring their online social sites, and make a rule that you will be "friends" on such sites. (Don't comment on anything unless you want to embarrass your child!)
 * Monitor your kids' SM use. Make a plan and stick to it, whether it's looking at the phone or computer daily, once a week, etc.
 * When kids get cell phones, talk to them about "sexting". For younger kids, tell them they should never receive pictures of naked people, or people kissing. For older kids, get more specific and talk about things they might know about. Make it clear that "sexting" often includes pictures and can be considered pornography.
 * Make sure older kids understand that sexting can result in serious legal ramifications, police often get involved in sexting cases, and it can even end up on a person's record, making it difficult to find work or go to college.

=**__Tips for parents of plugged in kids__**=

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The first thing parents should do is become internet savvy themselves; parents cannot help defend against something they know nothing about. It is easy for one to become technologically disadvantaged if one spends no time learning about the internet. Parents can take classes, subscribe to magazines and websites, and make it a part of their regular routine to stay afloat of the latest internet crazes. There are many online resources for parents, with large communities of people populating forums, etc., who will help. Some of the communities and websites even collaborate with savvy teenagers who are willing to give updates and advice. Some of the online resources include:
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|GetNetWise.org] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, an informative and easy to navigate website featuring how-to tutorials and frequent blog posts.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|WiredSafety.org] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, a US charity that operates through volunteers aged 7-96. Full of resources and information about online safety, behavior, privacy, and security.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|commonsensemedia.org] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">, neatly organized into categories for issues surrounding different age groups.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Another step parents can take is to simply talk to their kids. The Federal Trade Commission offers <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|these tips] <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"> for talking with kids about internet safety:
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Start early. As soon as your child is using a computer, phone, or mobile device, it is time to start talking about online behavior, safety, and security.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">An honest and open environment fosters a willingness for kids to talk about their safety or potential problems.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Initiate conversations. The FTC suggests using everyday opportunities to talk to kids about being online. For example, a tv program featuring teens online or texting on cell phones can be a jump off point for “what would you do if...” discussions.



Posted by: Emerald Crafton


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