Online Social Networking and Children

Today, social networking sites have enabled their users to share pictures, videos, and audio instantly with a click of a button. Today’s younger generation have taken advantage of this technology and many have taken to use social networking regularly, regarding their social networking as their own online space. After all, all this is available to them for free. It seems safe and secure to them, but do you really know what’s going on?

InTheKnow Children’s Safety Campaign Group have produced this leaflet for parents to explain what social networking is, how it can expose your children to dangers and the steps needed to be taken in order to protect them.

Social networking usage:

You may have heard of Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr being talked about by your children. These are all examples of social networks, which are operated on the internet and allow your children to share all sorts of media with other people including pictures, videos and audio, as well as allowing them to send and receive messages from other users. With the ability to share so much, sometimes unregulated, you can easily see how a door to danger can be opened, as children look into the online social networking world as their own private world.

For security measures, social networks such as Facebook will impose an age limit to prevent younger users who are unsure of how to stay safe from accessing the site, however these rules are always easily circumvented even by very young children, proving the rules imposed on users to be ineffective, and thus opening a door for children to access media that could potentially be unsuitable for them, harm them or even harm others.

What’s going on? Why do I need to be aware?

As a parent, it is extremely important to know what your children are being exposed to. In real life, protecting your children from bad influences and danger is essential, and this is the same for the online world of social networking. By placing more caution on the use of social networking, you can help protect your children from the dangers of the online world, many of which may seem hidden.

What are these dangers?

Social networking is often considered a private area of their life for many children. Children can see this as an easy way of communicating with people, and accessing media of interest to them. However, children may not realise that once content is placed online, it can be extremely hard to get rid of it and this can damage their future life, including job opportunities.

The most well-known issue with the use of social networking is cyber bullying. Cyber bullying is the use of technology such as the internet in order to purposely harm other users, often repeatedly. Children aged as young as 6 have reportedly been engaged in cyber bullying, and as technology continues to expand and become widely available this is likely to get worse. Types of cyber bullying include pretending to be someone, spreading lies or rumours targeted at people, harassing people or posting media without consent.