Nowadays, if you would like to stay connected with your loved-ones, you must learn how to use the computer, particularly social networking sites. It may scare you at first, even discourage you as I admit, it can get a little confusing out there, unfortunately this seems like the only way to keep tabs on your family and friends especially with your grandkids!
To my horror, I caught my granddaughter the other day, a thirteen year old, chatting on Facebook. The very cautious me started seeing red warning signs that eventhough the kid was only chatting with her bestfriend, I find it bothersome for her to be so exposed like that.
I do know that the internet world is so vast, it’s quite hard to be private and while popular social networking sites practice safety measures and I do believe they monitor their websites with an eye like a hawk, your safety boils down to your own good judgment and how educated you are in using social media sites.
Seniors should be aware that social networking sites are littered with people you don’t really like dealing with. These are your standard-issue scammers, stalkers, spammers, and what-have-you’s. Above all, viruses frequent these sites – even Facebook gets attacks from time to time!
To be able to protect yourself from these bad people, you need to have a safety plan when using social networking sites. Protection will help you enjoy your social networking experience more. Below are some tips on how to stay safe when using social networking sites:
* Don’t click links especially if it bears suspicious content. I observed that most scam links have weird texts in them such as “Hi <name>” or “this is hilarious”. Look for signs that that the link and texts accompanying it are “generalized” or applicable to every John and Jane when you take off your name out of the link. If you are really curious, message back your friend and ask what was it that she sent over. If he or she answers, observe if it’s really your friend talking. When in doubt, don’t open.
* Protect your password. Better yet, protect your email address AND password. I strongly suggest that you keep separate email addresses for your personal use and for your social networking activities. Furthermore, as much as possible, keep your password a nonreflection of your person. In other words, do not use birthdays, anniversaries, grandkid’s name, your dog’s name etc as your password. If you find it hard to remember, then have variations by using capital letters and numbers.
* Don’t add people you don’t know into your network. I find it really annoying to be “invited” by someone who I can’t, for the life of me, remember. Apparently there are “joy-inviters”, people who will attempt to invite you just to expand their network. Scammers will try to approach you the same way and if you are not too careful, you’ll end up exposing yourself to people you barely know.
* As much as possible, bookmark your sites. This way you won’t have to Google-search it anymore. Logging in from your bookmarks will help eliminate the possibility of your entering your access info on a fake site.
