Category: Social Media


E-mail for Kids

Posted on January 20th, by Cathy Olsen in Internet Safety, Popular, Social Media, Tutorial. 2 comments

Kids will need to sign up for their own e-mail account depending on their school projects or interactive accounts. Here are some helpful tips and guidelines to keep your kids safe and secure with their first e-mail account.



What is Instagram?

Posted on June 13th, by Cathy Olsen in Popular, Social Media, Tutorial. No Comments

 

 

Have you seen this logo before? Either on your kids phone, iTouch? What is Instagram? You just got used to using Facebook. Your kids have accounts but haven't posted anything in months. Why do I always hear and see stuff coming from Instagram?

What is Instagram?
Instagram is a social media app with 100 million users. The application can link to an existing Facebook,Twitter, Tmblr, foursquare, Picassa account.

Istagram is a social media network built around photos. An Instagram user can take a picture or use an existing photo and resize it to a nice square image with filter options. The Instagram user can tag other users and use hashtags to better organize and interact with other Instagram users.

Typically people like to take artsy “Slice of Life” pictures and post them with hashtags to get more likes and increase their following.

What is … Read More »



YouTube Safety Tips

Posted on May 30th, by Cathy Olsen in Popular, Social Media, Technology Explained, Tutorial. 8 comments

YouTube Safety

We have all tried to be vigilant in monitoring what our kids do on the Internet.  Even with my best intentions, my kids have often 'clicked too far' on YouTube.  So what should a parent do to keep YouTube Safe?  Keep reading for some technical and practical tips you can follow to keep YouTube entertaining and fun!

YouTube Safety Tip #1 – Turn on SafeSearch

I have previously written a post on how to turn on YouTube SafeSearch.  See YouTube for Kids.  The safe search will block all content that is identified as 'inappropriate, violent, lude.'

However, since I wrote that post, I have realized many shortcomings with this safesearch setting.  This isn't a one-step solution.  The Safesearch feature relies on YouTube users to be accurate in their descriptions and titles for their movies.  As you can imagine with the millions of … Read More »



Snap Chat Mobile App

Posted on March 8th, by Cathy Olsen in Popular, Social Media, Tutorial. No Comments

 

Snap Chat Mobile App – What is it?

SnapChat is a mobile app available on Apple and droid devices. that allows users to connect and take a picture and write a short message and share it with other Snapchat users that are listed as friends.  You can set the time allowed to view the picture.  Once the timer is up, the picture is no longer available on either the sender or receiver's phone.

SnapChat – Why Should I Worry?
1.  SnapChat & Sexting

SnapChat was built seemingly to conquer the ill's of sexting and taking inappropriate pictures.  Just look at the marketing picture provided by SnapChat.  It's difficult to tell if those girls are clothed or not.  Our kids should understand the consequences of taking and sending inappropriate pictures.  This application may offer a false sense of privacy to young users.

 

2.  SnapChat friends

You can … Read More »



Social Media Scams

Posted on February 26th, by Cathy Olsen in Social Media. No Comments

Typical Social Media Scams
1. Free Stuff!

We have all wanted free Starbucks, Costco Gift cards, and Amazon gift cards.  However, you will not be able to get any of these if you simply click on a link.

There are legitimate “Social Media Contests.”  These are used as a marketing tool for businesses that would like to get more social media interaction than a paid Facebook ad.  These would come from an official business Facebook page.  Typically you will need to 'like' the business Facebook page, share the post about the competition and write a short sentence of why you deserve it.  You will not need to provide any personal information to win.  Again, you should not be required to enter personal information to enter legitimate social media contests.

2.  Facebook Hacks

Have you seen the “'Find out who's been looking at your profile!” application?  … Read More »





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