Social Networking

Social Networking or Social Media describes a variety of services like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, World of Warcraft, Twitter, Skype, Snapchat and many others.

All of these services enable direct interaction between individuals. Users can post information about themselves, display photos, tell people what they’ve been up to, chat and play games. Social networking forms a part of the social identity of many teenagers.

As a parent, you can help your child have positive experiences on social networking sites:

• Stay involved in your child’s use of new technology. Set up your own account and learn about privacy settings so you can understand how you can best protect your child.
• Check your privacy settings—make sure your preferred privacy settings are in place to restrict who can see certain things you post.
• Encourage children to think before they put anything online. Information posted online can be difficult or impossible to remove.
• Be considerate before posting—avoid posting potentially embarrassing or offensive content, including inappropriate language, images, videos and other media. Don’t post negative comments about specific people.
• Report any abuse or inappropriate content to the social networking site and show children how to do this too.
• Learn how to keep a copy of online conversations and how to block people prior to an issue occurring.
• Remind children to be careful when making new friends online; people may not be who they say they are.
• Check the age restrictions for the social networking service or game. For example: