2 ms·

While true, that there is a risk to expose personal information to the internet you probably should start to educate your kids in internet usage and not deny th

by buster 17y ago

While true, that there is a risk to expose personal information to the internet you probably should start to educate your kids in internet usage and not deny them. You sentence "GMail was an entirely appropriate way for a child to communicate with family and school friends, as far as I can tell" shows that you are still living in the 20th century. "As far as i can tell" means "i didn't ask them but i don't use facebook and email works, so it works for them too". Did you really ask your kids if their friends communicate over social networks? You probably did miss it (too busy complaining and fearing?) but social networks are overtaking mail. You don't expect your kids to write their friends mail when everyone else is writing messages in facebook, do you? You will see, that your kids will get access to facebook/whatever anyway, if not only out of despite. One of many sources: http://mashable.com/2009/03/09/social-networking-more-popular-than-email/ http://mashable.com/2009/03/09/social-networking-more-popula... I beg you: Start educating your kids soon, if you have concerns, but don't forbid them!

gcampbell 17y ago
I see nothing wrong with allowing my kids to use social networking sites once I feel confident they're mature enough to accept the responsibility for managing their own privacy (and, in fact, my older child does already, although only on sites that allow pseudonyms for now). My observation is simply that use of email requires an entirely different understanding of privacy concerns than use of Twitter or Facebook, and that the default settings Google Buzz sets up are neither especially obvious (I had to hunt around for a while to figure out what was actually displayed to the public via Google Profile) nor what I would recommend for a minor. Again: I have no problem with educating my children about the proper use of social networking sites. I simply don't appreciate being forced to do so by a service which they've been able to use without these sorts of concerns since they were old enough to read.

by buster 17y ago

gcampbell 17y ago

I see nothing wrong with allowing my kids to use social networking sites once I feel confident they're mature enough to accept the responsibility for managing their own privacy (and, in fact, my older child does already, although only on sites that allow pseudonyms for now). My observation is simply that use of email requires an entirely different understanding of privacy concerns than use of Twitter or Facebook, and that the default settings Google Buzz sets up are neither especially obvious (I had to hunt around for a while to figure out what was actually displayed to the public via Google Profile) nor what I would recommend for a minor. Again: I have no problem with educating my children about the proper use of social networking sites. I simply don't appreciate being forced to do so by a service which they've been able to use without these sorts of concerns since they were old enough to read.