Keeping it REAL in the Digital World

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How many parents find the internet difficult to get our heads around? How many of us wonder whether we should just turn off the plug and dispose of our computers? How many of us see the events taking place on the internet JUST TOO MUCH FOR US TO COMPREHEND! 

I am sure many of us fall into that category.  However, if we take a step back, look at the picture from a higher level; take a bird’s eye view of it all, we can begin to see the picture a lot more clearly.

Since the popularisation of social networking began several years ago, users quickly understood that communicating from behind a computer, in a relatively safe environment, meant that we sometimes communicated in a way that we may not have, if that conversation took place face to face.

This encouraged some users to let down their guard and behave in ways that may not be totally acceptable in the real world.  Some of the behaviour was devious, risqué, dangerous and bullying.

This has led to the rise of scams, viruses, identity theft, cyber bullying, as well as social problems brought on by internet addiction and depression.

Parents are often confused in trying to understand technology, and how best to protect their children, in a world they don’t quite understand.

Helping parents understand technology is something WebSafety NZ does well. We help parents make the right software choices in the home as well as helping businesses manage their internet environment.

Once parents teach their children that the way they behave on the internet is no different to the way they behave in society, we start to develop a culture of good digital citizenship.

We are currently presenting our Internet Safety seminar to parents at some of the top schools in Christchurch. ‘Keeping it real’ is the theme of these presentations.

Remember, there will always be new technology surfacing. Always a new fad, craze or trend relating to technology. It doesn’t matter whether it is Formspring, ‘planking’, ‘tea-potting’ or ‘couching’, once we understand that we apply the SAME positive behaviour regardless of the technology, we start to understand how to manage it going forward.

Facebook: Find People Fast!

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Have you ever wondered about how detailed the search feature has become on Facebook? Or thought how easy it now is to find people? 

It’s a fantastic tool for law enforcement agencies to find criminals, but not so good when our children don’t have appropriate privacy settings in place on their profiles. After all, Facebook builds all its search criteria on the information each user makes public. The less information filled out on a Facebook profile, the better.

Let’s take a closer look at the features of search on Facebook.

1. General Facebook Search

On this page you can select search by people and enter the basic information such name, location, education, workplace and start your search.

 

 

 

 2. Search for Friends on Facebook 

Facebook also provide more specific search like search by name or email, search by school and search by company. Just enter the person’s name in each search category.

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. Find friends from different parts of your life

This page also provides more specific people search term to get more accurate search results.

 

 

 

 

 4. Find Friends by email address

Facebook can help you to find person from your email address book. All major web mail services like Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, Skype etc are supported Etc.

 

 

 

 

 

5. Facebook Advance People Search Application

You can use this application to search for people on Facebook. It is added from the available applications. This app currently indexes profiles of about 240 million people in its database.

As a father, I don’t want someone trawling through my daughter’s school and going through her friend’s profiles. 

Think about prospective employers. We know they are likely to reference Facebook for any candidates they may be reviewing, but it now makes their job a lot easier.

Can anything be done to limit the search ability of a user on Facebook? The answer is YES. This can be achieved in two ways. Firstly, limit or remove all personal information about yourself in your profile, and restrict what information is shared. You can find this in the privacy settings.

Secondly, Facebook provides the ability to make your profile unsearchable on Facebook. This is found in the privacy settings.  Any profile can be made secure on Facebook. It’s just a matter of taking time and figuring it all out!