A NJ principal has challenged parents of middle school children to keep them fully off of social networks. Anthony Orsini of Ridgewood, NJ emailed the parents of his school’s 700 students asking them to keep middle school children off of social networks, like Facebook. He also asked the parents to use parental control software, to keep computers out of their children’s bedrooms and to monitor their online activities. Since the principal’s office is usually the first court of law for cyberbullying and the offline but in school repercussions, you can only imagine the scores of social networking fights he’s seen and the cruel comments, fake online profiles and nasty emails brought in for his attention. Is a full on ban the only option for a concerned parent? Have you tried this and what would you advise your parenting peers?
My husband and I allow our children to use social networking when they become 13, the earliest you can legally participate in these sites. We set that expectation long in advance so our youngest knows not even to ask about it. In addition to the rule about waiting until you are old enough, we also talk to our children about strategies for using social networks safely,
appropriately and with kindness for others. And, both parents are their friends and we do monitor their online postings. I know some of my friends who are using similar methods have found themselves “de-friended” only when they tried to see their child’s profile page. So I recommend you check your access from time to time, to ensure your child hasn’t tried a similar ruse.
For all of us, Facebook and their evolving approach to allow us to manage our online privacy has kept us all on our toes. Even when you think you’re taking precautions, sometimes our own too human nature can make us hurt our online security. For example, I held off posting my date of birth on Facebook since I thought it would only help a potential id thief. Indeed, just having my maiden name on my profile, which I did to help school friends find me, is a boon to a would-be bad guy! On the birthday issue, I’ve seen the wonderful greetings people get within Facebook by sharing their birthday date, so I added mine (just month and day) to my profile. Having recently celebrated a birthday, it was so lovely to hear from old and new friends and receive their warm wishes, so at the moment, I feel the risk was worth it! But at any time I can go back into my profile settings and remove the birthday information from my page.
Do you ever think about the impact of what you share in social networks and the ease it provides to both id thieves and real world criminals? A recent LA Times blog entry covers what not to post on Facebook with a handful of easy-to-implement tips and reminders about real world risk of identity theft.
One of the sources for the LA Times story was a Consumer Reports survey finding that more than half of adults who use social networks post information that increases their cybercrime risk. You’ll be interested to know that Consumer Reports will be hosting a live panel on online privacy and security tomorrow, Tuesday, May 4th, 2010 at 12:30 pm ET. You can access it via their Facebook page (click the tab marked “Live” to join).