Welcome to Day 8 of Safe & Sound!

No talk about internet safety would be complete without a word on social spaces like social media or online gaming. So today for Safe & Sound, we’re looking at steps you and your child should take to stay safe online when they are interacting with others.

STAYING SAFE ON GAMES AND SOCIAL MEDIA.

There are times when we miss the good old days…when Facebook was the only social media app, and you had to have a college email address to join. C’est la vie! Social media has exploded over the last five years, and it just continues to grow and evolve. Life now happens within an app for many kids, from elementary schoolers to teens. Social media does have positive aspects. It allows for connections, creativity, exploration, and laughter. But interacting with people you “think” you know can also be dangerous.

Bottom line: kids need to know how to stay safe when socializing online.

FOCUS ON PRIVACY.

You can help protect your child online by focusing on privacy. Take a two-pronged approach. First, consider what your child puts out there. Second, check the settings on their account.

Consider what they put out there. This ties back to hackers. One easy way for someone to gather information about your child is through their username/handle. If you come across the user name JaneSmith84, it’s easy to discern two things: that person’s name and birth year. How about CaliBornSurfer12? Someone who was born in California and likes to surf. Hackers will use any type of information to try and break into your device. The less personal the information, the harder it is for a hacker to break in. Coach your child to create strong, safe user names that don’t give away their personal information. Example: Rockstar123.

Check account settings. In this day and age of Instagram influencers and YouTube stars, some youth (and even adults) look to social media as a way to make money. The unfortunate reality: you have a 2% chance (the same odds of a high school athlete going pro) of making a living on social media. But this isn’t the only reason kids make their social media accounts public. They are often seeking validation. We can all acknowledge that the teen years are rough. For some kids, the need for acceptance and validation outweighs safety. Assess your child’s account settings—and check every app (even apps like Venmo!), because most have default settings that are set wide open for the digital world to see. Your child will be safer if their accounts are set to private and only people in their contact list in the app can message them. There is no good reason for a stranger to be able to message a youth.

For young kids, keep their circle to real-life friends. For younger kids who are not on social media platforms but perhaps play online gaming, talk with them about what is considered personal and private information and why it is important to not game with people you don’t know in real life. Not everyone is who they say they are online.

TODAY’S ACTIVITY:

Start with your own devices and check your privacy settings. If your child has a device, have a conversation about privacy settings and usernames.

That’s it for Day 8! See you tomorrow!