Quick Tip: Do's and Don'ts of Cyber Space

Do: Report anything that makes you feel uncomfortable

When on the internet you can never be completely sure about whom you are talking to. Sally the eleven year old girl down the street who wants to hang out later may be that fifty-five year old man down the street who drives a big white van with no windows and offers you candy to get inside. If you ever come across someone who you think is talking to you inappropriately to you or just doesn’t seem right you should immediately walk away and find a trusted adult who can help sign you out of the site, and lead you to a safer site to use. 

 

Do: Set any profiles you have to private

When on Facebook, Tumbler, or even the unused MySpace all your profiles should be set to private. This may seem like it defeats the purpose of social networking and meeting new people, but this will make it your decision whether or not you want certain people to see all of your personal information before you actually add them and become “friends”.  Certain types of information that should not be posted to strangers are your address, your e-mail address, your phone number (cell or home) or what school you go to.   

 

Do: Ask someone for help when you need it

If you are having trouble accessing the site you want, or have a question about what’s the best place to get your research information from ASK someone!!! Don’t just keep clicking buttons

Continuously, this won’t get you anywhere. In most cases if you’re at the library, at school or even at home someone around even a friend might be able to help you and answer all of your questions before you click the wrong button and download some kind of virus that costs hundreds of dollars to fix. (Trust me I’ve seen this happen to many innocent victims). 

 

Do: Stay in public chat rooms

A lot of the safety problems start off when someone decides it would be a good idea to start a private chat with someone. This isn’t always bad if you want to have a private chat by all means go ahead, but do be careful of the safety risks you’re taking and how to avoid most of them.

 

Don’t: Post a picture of yourself or anyone you know

This goes along with some of the privacy issues. Although you don’t think a picture can mean or do much to put you in danger. This is not the case if someone wants to track you down they can use that picture along with the other information that probably doesn’t have privacy settings on it either. You don’t know what people want with your picture so either don’t put one up, or make sure only your friends can see it.

 

Don’t: Let anyone else have access your profiles and e-mail accounts

This is how cyber bullying starts. If you get in a fight with your boyfriend/girlfriend or best friend then this could be their first form of revenge. If they have your passwords they can get into your accounts and release information (real of fake) that you did not want anyone to know. This could cause some serious problems in school, with families, and depending on the situation the law.

 

Don’t: Cyber bully anyone EVER, allow yourself to be bullied

Cyber bullying is wrong. It can hurt many people, and just like above cause problems. There are more than several instances where not just teens, but children have been so abused through this type of bullying that they attempt, or even succeed in suicide or self mutilation. Cyber bullying is a serious crime and should be taken as such. 
 

Don’t: Fill out memberships or surveys on unsecure sites

We have all been on websites where there are no “pop-up” blockers or protection. When these “pop-ups” pop-up we see the words “You are the 1,000,000 visitor, you could win 2,000,000 now! Just click now!” or “Need a vacation? Enter to win a Caribbean Sea cruise”. Although all of these ads are really tempting 99.999% of them are SCAMS.  These companies putting out the ads are mostly just looking for phone numbers and personal information so they can spam your e-mail account or steal your name later on depending on the company. In this case NEVER respond to these adds if you don’t now exactly where and who they came from.

Music and Teens

For most teens music is an important factor in everyday life for them. This means you won't find a teenager without an I-Pod, Zune, or some kind of music playing device at some point during the day. Teens listen to an average of 40 hours of music per week. Whether it be on the radio, their computer, or the new CD kids rarely buy these days since they can just download them off of the internet. Often there is no filter on what teenagers listen to. Of course the radio and music videos on T.V "Bleep" out all of the bad words, and try to keep the content as clean as possible, but most music is about sex, violence, and drugs.
Information found: http://www.swmihoh.org/INeedHelp/TeenStatistics/tabid/71/Default.aspx

The natures of the type of music adolescents listen to can be reflected back on how they treat their friends, families and teachers.
The negative effects:
The adolescents listening to the music could have several affects depending on the type of music. Depending on the type of music this could range from simple outbursts to shocking violence against other teens. One of the most shocking examples I can think of is the Columbine High School shootings. These kids were into Heavy Metal, Screamo, and basic Rock and Roll. Some of the people they listened to were people like Marilyn Manson. If you haven't learned much about the Columbine shootings you should know that many people blamed Mansons violent music that talked about taking out your anger on others for the teens actions. This as an extreme case where children took what they heard from the music they listened to daily and put it into action.
Other negative effects could be a little bit of teenage rebellion towards parents and teachers, listening to music so much/almost too much where you isolate yourself from friends and other peers, or getting the wrong impression of society from a certain song or group.
Two violent acts blamed on Metal, Is it right?  http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2466738/does_heavy_metal_have_an_effect_on.html?cat=7

Two sides to every story, Marilyn speaks out: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Columbine-Massacre-Cost-Me-Everything-Marilyn-Manson-Says-114107.shtml

There are many more POSITIVE affects which I would rather focus on like
Music therapy: Music can affect anyone's mood and help them relax. Depending on the volume, intensity, and frequency of the song or artist people can internalize the emotions of the singer/band and start to feel that themselves. Music can help stimulate our minds and help us.

In reaity sure music may have some bad reputations around some people, but mostly music is a helpful tool around teenagers and adolescents. It helps brings different kinds of people together, and lets them be themselves without having to worry about everyday stresses.

Want more of the positive effects of music? Go here: http://winmentalhealth.com/music_psychology.php

Staying in Touch

February Second.

School had another snow day again. I usually love them, but I'd actually much rather be in school talking to people and getting one step closer to graduating rather than sitting at home doing nothing. Luckily for my television, computer, Facebook, E-mail, and phone these past few days would have been boring, but at least I had something to entertain myself with.
These few days really made me realize how important technology is in this day in age.
Did you know; there are 23million cell phone users under the age of thirteen,
About 115million housholds in the United States own a television, and
73% of houslholds have a gaming systeem

If you take a look at the following site you will notice that Bloggin, Facebook, and other networking sites have grown more popular for young adults rather than "older" ones ranging 30years and up.
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1484/social-media-mobile-internet-use-teens-millennials-fewer-blog

Heres another site that compares teens to adults in a few different ways(I like this one better) 
Which statistics apply to you?
http://www.frankwbaker.com/mediause.htm

In 2000 only 73% of teens(12years to 18years) used the internet, by 2004 that statistic was up to 84%. Just think how much more it's risin since then...Take a look!
http://www.clickz.com/clickz/stats/1698308/teen-use-of-web-online-technologies-growing

Well that's my excerpt for the day.
Moral of the story, My computer and phone are my life line when I can't actaully see the people I want to.