Get Friendly on Facebook
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe by RSS
Had an interesting chat about social media tools and web sites last week with some students I am working with. The conversation was led by the recent story of the young Johannesburg teenager and the alleged MXit connection to her 48 hour disappearance.
The crux of the conversation came down to the students suggesting that a lack of parental involvement, rather than MXit, was to blame for the teens disappearance. MXit, like most other social services, actively promote a policy of privacy. There are many notices and warnings given to users about revealing personal information to strangers met using the service. Users are able to block contact from unwanted correspondents, ban specific users from making contact, and prevent their details from being shared with others.
To my mind, the students make a very valid point. To allow your child to use these services without clearly spelling out the rules they should follow when using them, and the potential risks associated with them, is just plain poor parenting. And to use the excuse “I didn’t know what they were doing or how these things even work!” simply doesn’t hold any water. Find out FFS! Educate yourself to ensure you know what your children are doing, and stop abdicating your responsibility as a parent by shifting the blame to others.
With this in mind, we’ve set up a new poll to determine which of the popular social media services BlaBla Blog readers are using. Parents: you may want to investigate these services to ensure that you know more about them than your children do!
Loading ...Select all of those that you use. And drop us a note in the comments if there are others that you think we should add.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on this – whether you are a parent, a teenager, or just a casual user of social media services, tools and networks.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_c.png?x-id=1b4c832c-729f-4699-bb88-505c56646f8c)
9 Comments
I agree wit u! Parents must take much more interest in what their kids are doing online. There is some seriously scary things out there in cyberland.
Please add Bebo toyour list
Thanks for the votes Gallpop. Bebo added as requested.
I don't have children but I have known to be obsessed with the access that I my nephew and niece have to social medias.
I personally have scared the be….dinges out of my brothers and my parents about the dangers of social medias. For that reason my nephew and niece may only use cellphones that are not WAP enabled, and the cellphones are being constantly scrutinized. Invasion of privacy? I am sorry those two do not have any privacy,.. they are being protected.
Also, they may only access the internet while being supervised. Strict supervision. They are only 9 years old and when they are older, we will review those rules.
My colleague found an sms on her 12 year old son's phone which he received from a 14 year old girl:
What would you do to me if you would find me in your room, naked, with soft playing and candles all over the room?
Ok, it was written in that strange txt messages language that is so popular, but that was more or less the message.
"Strict supervision" – That's exactly the approach that I think all parents should be taking.
Where does a 14 year old girl even get the idea behind such a provocative sms in the first place? Never mind actually sending it. Holy crap.
Oh, I wanted to mention something else.
In Rehoboth, small town 80 km south from Windhoek, a group of high school boys got themselves a new hobby.
They would invite girls over, get drunk, get high on hubbly bubbly mixed with gaaddd knows what else, and when the girls pass out, they would have an orgy, use their cellphones to video tape it, distribute it on facebook, bluetooth and whatever else.
I really like your blog and i respect your work. I'll be a frequent visitor.
Your poll is broken bloke! I’m seeing something about logorreah?
Ohhh, errrr….
*awkward silence*
Shazzers too right it seems. Sorry about that. I’ll figure it out shortly.
Okay, I fixed it. But while doing so I managed to take the site look and feel back to the dark ages of 2010… sorry about that.
We’ll need to spend a little time tidying things up again.