Since teenagers can access the sites at home, on a mobile phone, with a laptop and wifi, at a friend's house, the public library, and in some cases, school, it is almost impossible to prevent a teenager from participating in a social networking site. It is better for parents to accept that online friendships and connections exist, and arm themselves with knowledge.
Understanding Social Networks
Social Networks are internet junk food - they are fun, cute, and offer limited substance. Social networks offer people individual pages that can be personalized. Users must create an account, a profile, and a page they can personalize. Most people use social networks to show off pictures and post information about themselves. Users can add friends, which will allow more access to private posts. Users can also post comments that can be seen by other people.
Dangers of Social Networking Sites
The primary concern with social networking sites is that people will unwittingly invite threats into their lives by revealing too much personal information. Because people comment on each other's pages, posting in the comment section of one friend's page can allow a stalker to find out details that most people consider fairly private, such as school schedules and phone numbers.
An increasing problem with social networking sites is that the past will haunt the poster. Future employers and college admissions personnel can research the sites and discover an immature, wild side of a teenager.
Comparing Social Networking Services
Although all the social network sites have the same basic structure, they offer different levels of privacy protection.
- Bebo offers three levels of privacy. Users under the age of 16 years are automatically private. Bebo lets users adjust for privacy, including setting restrictions of the age and school of the viewer. Of course, there is no way for Bebo to verify that a user is actually that age or attends that school.
- Facebook offers two levels of privacy, and users can choose which friends get updates about themselves. Facebook allows users to join regions, which can be changed a limited number of times.
- Habbo is site that is specifically designed for teenagers. It is designed to be more private that other sites, and has more moderation than other sites. Habbo filters pages for private information and have an easy to access parent help page. Like other social networking sites, friends can be added and removed.
- Myspace allows two privacy options. If a user is friends with one someone, they can see and comment on that person's pictures and site. Myspace has increased privacy and warnings for users.
- Myyearbook has two privacy options. Users are grouped by school and location.and the site allows users to transfer their myspace pages to Myyearbook's more teen-friendly site.
- Twitter allows constant conversation through text messages. Users can restrict who their texts go to, and have privacy by determining who their friends are, but the site defaults to allowing everyone to read everyone's Twitter tweets.
- Xanga has changed over the years, and has the most refined privacy options. Users can block people who can view their pages and restrict who can comment on pages. Xanga allows people to "lock out" anyone who is not approved.
Protecting Privacy Online
In order to protect private information, it is important that teenagers do not post personal information about themselves, and that they insist friends respect their privacy by not posting information. Teenagers should never post these things on other sites, and if they post them on their own sites, they need to keep the page private.
- last names
- addresses
- phone numbers
- school details (schedules, names of teachers, coaches, or anything that can be researched to determine what school is being discussed)
- yearbook scans
- detailed travel plans
- detailed social plans
Even though sites offer privacy, it does not mean that they guarantee privacy. Internet predators are clever and dangerous. Teenagers should only become virtual friends with people they know in real life. Social network sites are great for keeping in touch with far-away friends, but those friends should be confirmed to exist in reality.
Alex Sharp - Alex Sharp is a teacher who has been keeping Suite101 readers up to date with the latest in audio- and e-book gadgetry since 2008.
