Manage Facebook Privacy settings

Facebook changed it’s privacy settings recently, and some things are really bad. read on for more information about what has changed and how you need to set up both your childrens site, and yours to avoid any tricky situations with accidental sharing of your personal information.

Warnings about holidays and “check-ins”

Risks of geo-tagging

Did you know that your smart phone could unknowingly be putting you in danger? A number of applications and social networking sites “Geotag” your location when you post or take pictures. Your privacy settings might also allow others to tag you at these locations!

This is a useful feature in certain circumstances. However, it does allow others to watch your every move. For example, Facebook allows you to do a simple “check in”.

Limit screen time to 2 hours a day

We know this one is going to be hard over Christmas, however, our recent survey shows that over 90% of families are giving technology this Christmas.

It is a goal that you will need to set. It is also a goal that should be set up front with technology gifts. This way, any gift receiving day (birthday, or Christmas) can be an exception, and then revert to normal behaviour the day after.

This article illustrates why this is important, and gives you some tips on how to set up this environment.

Change default passwords on devices

Devices that connect you to the internet all come with default passwords. One of the first tasks in protecting your network and family from online threats shoudl be setting these devices up with a strong password.

Tip #2 – understand how your family connects

To begin to control the online world of your family, you will need to really understand a bit about how your family interacts with the online world. Here are some real tips to understand what sort of risk there is to your family technology environment.

Low-tech Bedrooms are key to managing online time

We can’t stress enough how important this is. When you realise that on average, teenagers in North America send 33 text messages to their boy/girl friend(s) a night between midnight and 5am, it comes as no surprise that teenagers, who are already tired due to puberty – are also tired due to lack of sleep.