For more of Chad's articles and resources visit www.chadl.co or http://start2finish.org/category/active-digital-parenting/
Social Media Crash Course
Social media, just like technology, changes at the speed of light. Next month there will be a whole new app or service on the scene that appeals to your kid more than the last. Some have more lasting power than others. Some are dangerous, like one I will tell you about today. Some are harmless if you know you child's account info and can log in to see what they've been doing.
Things to remember...
**1. You are the product, not the customer.** These services bill themselves as services to you, the customer, but in actual fact, you're really they're product. How do these companies make billions of dollars? Every time you click, like, retweet, or post something, they get money. They sell your data to advertisers. That's how they make billions.
**2. Nothing is private.** In the face of all the passwords and security and what not, you'd think your data would be safe and secure. It's not. Data breaches happen at these companies all the time. Your data that you put out there has to be transmitted somewhere and it can be intercepted in a variety of ways. Your data is stored on server farms out in the middle of nowhere and people can get your data that way. DON'T EXPECT ANYTHING TO BE PRIVATE ON THE INTERNET.
**3. Know your child's account username and password for any and all accounts.** You should have unlimited access to their accounts at any time, and they should KNOW that you have unlimited access to their accounts at any time.
**4. Your child will naturally gravitate towards what is popular with their friends and what you're NOT using.**
- Twitter - the simplest of the social media services
- "Micro-blogging" at 140 characters (same limit as a original text message)
- Facebook status updates without the Facebook
- Twitter is especially appealing to teens because parents aren't on there yet
- Big diff between Twitter and Facebook: Twitter is largely ungoverned - except for spam.
- You can follow whomever you want - users can also follow you (unless you have an protected account)
- You can retweet whomever you want - and people can retweet you - basically reposting to all their followers what you tweeted
- You can block whomever you want
- You can report anyone for spam
- Direct Messages (DMs) - private messages between users
- Hashtags - ways of categorizing tweets (i.e. #BAMAvsTAMU)
- Everyone that looked up that particular hashtag could see my tweet
- Started in 2004 for college campuses to interact with each other
- Has grown to over 1 billion users worldwide in 2013
- Has been extremely popular with kids up until the last 24 months or so
- The Hashtag and "private" aspect has dwindled teens' involvement
- Parents and adults now flood the site (most active group is 35-45 year olds)
- You can like Pages or join Groups - none of this private
- You can tag or be tagged in photos - provided you have enabled that under privacy settings
- Privacy setting I love: Make everyon that tags you in something let you approve it before it goes to your timeline
- Privacy settings change and are reset at irregular intervals - no time to go over all of them
- Privacy Shortcuts
- Make sure to check your settings periodically to make sure nothing has been set back to default
- While sometimes confusing, Facebook does allow lots of control of your privacy on their site
- You can deactivate your account, but your data remains for a minimum of 36 months
- Facebook's entire motive is to get you to share EVERYTHING
- Addresses - Facebook does not need to know my address!!
- Photo sharing - not a whole lot else
- Let's you tag or @-reply to friends or anyone - also add hashtags a la Twitter and geo-locate
- Let's you take pictures and post them through the app or select pictures from your camera roll
- Allows graphics, screenshots, other pictures and content
- Does not allow pornography or violent content
- You can like or comment on a photo
- You can connect your account to post to Twitter, Facebook, and other services
- Remember: Facebook owns Instagram now, so they will do everything they can to connect it to Facebook for you
Vine
- Vine is "Instagram for video"
- Let's you share 6-second micro-videos with the world
- Does allow you to protect your account (only followers can see your posts)
- Does not allow you to edit existing video and use it
- Allows social discovery of videos easily (not all videos are exactly Christian)
Snapchat
- Billed as the "private" messaging app
- Very alluring to teens because it deletes photos 10 seconds after they are viewed
- You can friend (add) people and send them messages
- You can add text to your messages
- From the beginning, this app did not have good intentions
- It was built for sharing nude or inappropriate photos on a "non-public" network
- Deleted photos can still be intercepted, stored and retransmitted
- Photos can be screenshotted on the actual phone itself
- Honest opinion? Delete it. Don't allow your children to use it.
Kik Messenger
- Not a lot of difference between this and Snapchat
- Does not delete your photos unless they are deleted manually by the user
- You can share all types of media - Youtube videos, sketches, etc.
- It's just another place where parents AREN'T
For more of Chad's articles and resources visit www.chadl.co or http://start2finish.org/category/active-digital-parenting/
There are so many other apps out there. I plan to share some of the Top 15 apps that kids are on in my next blog post! Hope you have a great day and find this information beneficial!
No comments:
Post a Comment