Monday, April 16, 2012

Social Networking Etiquette For Teens

My wife is working with kids, teens and young people at Church and she has some sort of following. But they follow me instead because she has no Facebook account of her own.

I received friend request here and there and I got to ask her if she knows them. Of course, most these kids know me as well. But I had a hard time matching their names with their faces. Some I knew when they were as young as 8 or 9 at Kid's church, and then now that they're college students and seeing them once in a quarter, I have forgotten many of them.

Since we're friends in Facebook, i get to see some of their pics and walls. They certainly have grown. But I have some concerns with a few of them. Some post inappropriate pics and rants like they don't care at all. I've seen a few verbal quarrels as well. I guess these are problems not only common in teens but for other adults too. But it's the kids and teens that I'm concerned the most. They're vulnerable and they need to be guided.

I see the need of these kids to be informed on proper social media etiquette. What they post during high school will be there in the internet long enough that it could be used against them in the future. Who knows if they'll suffer the same fate as those graduating kids from STC who weren't able to march with their batch. Or that they'll be cyber-bullied because they think that it's alright to ride a butanding, drown a cat, or pose in a crucifix with sexy shorts. We do a lot of crazy things when we were teens, right? All for the sake of fun, notwithstanding the consequences.

Just when I was thinking of coming up with seminar materials for these young people, GMA7 came up with a series of ads "Think Before You Click". Here's the Tween Edition:

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