As we grew up, our time was spent interacting with our friends at the neighborhood playground or throughout the neighborhood. Generally, our parents knew where to find us, and knew what we were doing. Today, though, our children find themselves interacting with their friends in a different playground – Social Networks. As parents, we rarely know exactly where our children are “playing” or who their playmates are.

Social Media have pervaded almost every aspect of society – our children can interact with users worldwide on their home computers and smart phones; they can receive and view news reports from around the world; and, in many places, class lessons are taught through online courses or Internet broadcasts. A number of programs and applications have emerged to help distribute this media, and to allow viewers and users, including our children, to share thoughts, opinions and other comments about what they have seen or heard.

Social media sites, originally intended to provide efficient distribution of news and business events and ideas, quickly transitioned into being a channel for people to connect personally with others – both current friends as well as new ones from around the world. This personal connection, although attempted by Friendster in 2002 and MySpace in 2003, really took off when Facebook started in 2004. The subject of the 2010 movie The Social Network, Facebook began as a way for Harvard students to communicate with each other at any hour. From the almost 10,000 participants of Facebook’s first month, the site has become the world’s largest social networking site with 750,000,000 unique visitors each month.

With a minimum age of 13, and 36% of users under the age of 18, chances are your child is one of those unique visitors to Facebook.

For most children and teenagers, social networking sites like Facebook provide a seemingly safe, yet exotic opportunity for them to explore friendship possibilities worldwide. Many of the sites allow international interaction, the sharing of photos and videos, as well as networking features such as Instant Messaging, groups, personalized “mail,” and the ability to search for other friends. Also available is the ability to schedule or be invited to “events” for almost any type of activity, with only those who are invited knowing about the event, including the Saturday Night drinking party at Susie’s while Susie’s parents are away. The security features most sites offer also make most children and teenagers feel safe, even though this is a false sense of security if the features are not used properly.

Being naïve, most of our children do not use the security features properly, leading them to unwittingly “friend” those who might not want to be so friendly. Unfortunately, security features are only as secure as they are set to be; and, many of our children, seeking their independence and individuality, leave some of the security features unused or do not set adequate levels of security, either by choice or by a lack of knowledge about how to use them properly.

Just like there were a variety of parks, playgrounds and friends’ houses we would go to, our children visit various locations as well. Some locations are more secure and safe than others.

A variety of social networking sites are available, with just as large a variety of security for our children. The types of these sites are also varied and range from blogs such as WordPress and Blogger, to so-called Microblogs like Twitter, Wikis such as Wikipedia, Videos like YouTube and Metacafe, photo-sharing sites such as Flickr, and, of course, the networking sites like Facebook and MySpace.

While most have been developed to share information among a group of people, the social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, Friendster and others are developed to create the “personal touch” our children are seeking. These sites are more likely to attract our children, and on which we are most likely to find our children spending their time.

Just as our parents did with us, we need to ask our children where they are going online, and making sure that we follow up by confirming that this is where they actually are going. We also need to ask them who they are talking to, or “friending,” and likewise, make sure these are the people with whom they’re interacting.

Allowing our children their independence and individuality should be done gradually. In doing so, though, we should not sacrifice their protection, particularly when it comes to online activities and the Social Media arena.

AUTHOR OVERVIEW

Lisa Shaw Senior Director, Child Online Safety and Protection at SpectorSoft

What do five kids ranging in age from kindergarten to high school, a Harvard MBA and years of protecting kids online get you? It gets you Lisa Shaw, COO of her very busy household, and a Senior Director at SpectorSoft, the number one leader in monitoring and protecting your kids online. She's an expert on the technology and trends that you need to arm yourself with to be the best parent you can be in today’s digital world.

Tags: parenting advice, social networking