Technology is now present in all aspects of life, and social media, but rather is a daily part of it. It is not only the adults who are streaming on the media. There are an increasing number of children as well. Children already have their own social networks that they can start with, and they are usually marketed as moderate safe havens for them, where they can interact freely and at the same time parents can supervise their activities, even that Facebook has provided a “private messaging” version of the child. Nevertheless, these are moderate, coordinated, and safe spaces that children eventually leave when they reach a certain age. What can you do to make your children's transition to social networks more adult-focused, as safe and smooth as possible?

Amer Ewaida, an information security specialist at ESET, offers these tips that your children should know before doing their first social media experience:

Are you sure you want to share this on the internet?

What is going on on the Internet remains on the Internet. Something adults always forget, which is something anyone should remember before sharing anything on the Internet. The same is for children who will join adult-oriented social networks.

If children want to post or share something, they should always think about how this will reflect on them in the future, and although it may be difficult to discuss such a topic with teenagers, it is important. A good basic rule before posting anything is to ask themselves what an older relative (Grandpa for example) will say, if they see the content.

Another lesson is to indicate how youth recklessness can return to chasing them, or nullify their career choices or even college students in the future. Unfortunately, there are countless examples of how tweets and forum posts even photos and comments have been chased negatively by artists, sports figures, and government officials alike.

Do you really know this person?

Perhaps the phrase "do not talk to strangers" is one of the most frequent phrases a child hears while growing up. This statement is not only issued by parents, but also by teachers, public service announcements, children's shows, and many others. While most teens may consider social networks safer since they are on the Internet and are "not counted as part of that type of risk", parents must strongly articulate that the risks are similar, and in some cases they have proven to be worse.

And you can illustrate the dangers by using countless examples of horror stories involving teenagers who have been drawn online by criminals and ultimately fallen victim to them.

There are many movies and TV series dealing with the topic of interacting with strangers on the Internet, as one old example says: "It is better to see something once than it is better to hear a thousand times." The Black Mirror series is one of these shows that deals with the dark side of technology and online life, albeit in a more science fiction setting.

Privacy settings

When adults subscribe to a social network, they rarely care about their privacy settings, so don't expect teenagers to be more interested even if they are born into an online world. Another thing to keep in mind is that social networks are constantly updating their privacy and security settings to keep pace with the growing scrutiny by the general public and governments alike, and it is extremely important to instill a sense of responsibility among teens about how to handle and display their data.

To achieve this, some social networks have begun to offer tools that allow you to conduct reviews of your privacy. Facebook, for example, has a privacy check, and this comprehensive tool allows you to take a look at your profile, as if you were a friend or stranger, to make sure how your page appears to them, so that you can easily choose what you want to share with whom, and allows Another stylish option for you is to review who can see your past and future posts.

Final thoughts

Raising a child in a more digitized world can be a challenge, especially since times have changed and there were not many options and technologies when you were young, and it is also important not to get away from these challenges and prepare your children for the obstacles they will face in the digital world, as well as in the real world, given Because it is very tangled. By talking to your children about the dangers of social media and how to treat them responsibly, you can better prepare them for adulthood and protect them to be more alert online.

- children in more digitization world education is a major challenge.

- Children have their own private safe havens, where they can interact under the supervision of parents.

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