Social Networking Sites – The Unknown Threat for your Child

The world has transformed into a global village and the families are interacting and linking together via different social media websites for keeping in touch with their close and distant relatives. Not even youngsters but children and parents are also becoming the part of these networking sites. The Social Media web sites serve as a network of global information with number of benefits; however the exposure is increasing day by day, so the parents have to play an active role to make sure that the children should remain protected and secure while using these sites. 

 

The Positive Side of the Coin

Undoubtedly the social media websites are great help for kids for educational purpose as they enable the students to be in touch with the latest technology and trends. Students can engage with their class mates and teachers by posting comments, visuals, formulas and they can also get helpful hints related to class activities in school for their projects and home assignments. There are many schools which have created interactive blog and pages, where they publish the new and announcements related to school events and activities and they publish newsletter on their blog. With this way parents can also be closely linked with the school administration and can share their concerns there. These websites can be used for creating awareness in students related to the day to day issues and engaged them in constructive activities.

The Other Side of the Coin

The risk factor come along with the use of these media site is that your child can be intimidated very easily by classmates or someone they do not know. The age is the biggest disadvantage in this scenario as your child cannot judge between the real and fake. There are many people with negative intensions, who can introduce your child to sexual content into conversations or by sending them links of the porn sites. They can also gain the personal information from your child with easy tactics. 

 

Parental Guidance - Some Basics to Remember

Do not share Personal Information

Parents need to teach their children that they have to keep the personal information safe. Tell them the problems they could face when they share their information with the strangers, such as home address, contact number and information related to their family. 

 

Keep your Password a secret

Being a parent, you should be creating awareness in your child that their social web accounts’ passwords could be a receipt to identity theft and the intruder can gain access to the information and pictures they have saved in their profile. The pictures can be used for some illegal mean and even the pictures and messages can be forwarded with your child’s name to their contacts, which could create a huge problem for your child’s safety.

Maintain the distance with your Online Friends

Children might consider themselves wise and pretty mature to understand the opponent. However, you need to teach them to maintain a distance while interacting with their online friends. Make sure that they should not be meeting with their online friends in person and if they wish to do so, then you should be fully aware of the other person’s information with whom they are going to meet. As there are many people who disguise their identity and pretend to be someone else.

Author Bio:

Austin Richard is an IT professional from Pass Certification. It provides you 100% 70-485 exams. Let’s take benefit of 156-915.71 Exams material efficiently and get guaranteed success. Check out free demo of all certifications Exam.