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facebook

…but Facebook “makes it much easier.

Facebook isn’t to blame for divorces any more than guns are to blame for people being murdered.

But if you give somebody a tool when they have intent to commit the act anyways, then the tool becomes an important part of the story. Facebook does facilitate affairs.

I know of a couple that recently went through a divorce, just about every point made in the article linked here fits perfectly with the situation that I witnessed. They both worked, and their kids had grown up. Then they sold her business and she was out of work. He kept working. She didn’t find a job, but increasingly, she spent her time online. With a Facebook account, she started connecting with old friends from high school and her network started to grow.

Her husband is decidedly non-techy and doesn’t go online. So he’s oblivious to what goes on. But she kept busy with her new social life. Facebook made it easy to find out about high school reunions at local bars, and to connect with new friends made at these parties.

Over the past year or so, she pushes for a divorce and it ultimately happens. The family almost unanimously agrees that she’s not the same person anymore. It’s as if she’s reverting to her teenage years. She has nothing interesting to talk about anymore, because all she talks about are her connections and social events with her new friends. When she’s with her family and the friends that she’s known for so many years, people notice that she’s tuned out and constantly texting with her online social network about the next gathering or hearing about how one of her new friends wants to ask another friend out. It’s frustrating to her contemporaries who believe that a social gathering is for people to socialize with the other physically at the gathering, not with people across the messaging networks.

I’m not blaming Facebook, or any other technology for her divorce and for how she’s acting. To me, though, it is clear that social networking facilitates a lot of connections between people that might not otherwise connect. In addition, if you have a partner that is not technically savvy and doesn’t go online, then social networking can be an effective way to quietly connect with a new group of people under the radar. Technology and social networks opens doors that were not typically available in the past.

Read the whole article: Is Facebook becoming a ‘tool’ for cheating spouses?

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10 Tips to Teach Your Kids About Privacy

by mark on March 19, 2010

When my son was about half his age, he started to get online to play a few, fairly harmless online multi-player games. No big deal — except that these games included a “chat” feature where you can communicate with other players, which I hadn’t noticed.

I learned about the chat feature only after my son came to me frustrated that he couldn’t log into his account on the game anymore. Turns out that he got bored with the game, and decided to give away his earned points and skills to another player by giving the other player his password. Ugh.

We had a talk about sharing information with strangers online and we revisit the topic from time to time. Luckily, he didn’t give out much more personal information in the chat room.

You’re Not as Private as You Think, an article by Caroline Knorr at Common Sense Media, has a nice list of tips that you should consider and discuss with your kids. Especially with younger kids, they can be very naive about the risks of giving out personal information.

Have any additional tips you’d like to share?

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Kids, be careful about what you put up on your facebook pages. It could come back to haunt you when you apply for a job some day.

And grown-ups… heed the same warning!

Wife blows MI6 chief’s cover on Facebook

The wife of the new head of MI6 has caused a major security breach and left his family exposed after publishing photographs and personal details on Facebook.

Sir John Sawers is due to take over as chief of the Secret Intelligence Service in November, putting him in charge of all of Britain’s spying operations abroad.

But entries by his wife Shelley on the social networking site have exposed potentially compromising details about where they live and work, their friends’ identities and where they spend their holidays. On the day her husband was appointed she congratulated him on the site using his codename “C”.

Unbelievable.

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Kids on their LaptopsPhoto by Wesley Fryer

You’re watching the evening news and the anchor says, “Coming up next! Something that will scare the crap out of you!” After a sequence of commercials, back to the news program where they report on a murder, or an abduction, or just something that shocks and frightens you.

They peddle fear because it sells advertising. It gets you to pay attention.

We don’t become overly concerned about our safety in the real world, because we live in it every day — working, shopping, socializing, jogging &mdash and we know it’s safe based on our experiences. Horrible things on the news rarely ever show up in our lives.

The news widely reports, and harps on, those rare events that happen in the real world.

When they report about online dangers and examples of bad things happening on FaceBook, MySpace, chat rooms and the like, some parents become very nervous about their kids being in the online world.

Some parents, not having a lot of experience in the online world, aren’t living it every day and can’t grasp that it’s relatively safe. They are only going on the sensationalized news stories.

If you’re one of those parents who is concerned about the online world your kids inhabit, you need to take some steps so that you can relax.

First, get some facts to put things in perspective. I heard Lenore Skenazy on NPR’s Talk of the Nation to discuss the realities of online predators with Neil Conan, Richard Blumenthal, and Janis Wolak. Each has a unique perspective on, and it is worth the half-hour listen.

Lenore also wrote about the subject on her
Free Range Kids blog So check them both out.

Next, calm your nerves by familiarizing yourself with the online world. Even better, ask your kids to help setting you up. If they show you the ropes you’ll get a good idea of what they do online as they explain to you what is cool and what is dumb. Ask them questions like, “What if somebody friends me, but I don’t want to be their friend?” or “If somebody is my friend, and they start bugging me, can I unfriend them?” You may come away with a feeling that you’re kids are doing a good job of being safer online than you think.

But don’t be insulted or angry if they won’t friend you. This is a way that your kids hang out with their peers. You’re their parent, not their peer, and they will think it’s creepy that their parents insist on always being present in their teen hangout. Besides, don’t we want to keep adults out of our kids online hangouts?

Pick up Lenore’s, Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry and help your kids to grow up stronger and independent.

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POLL: Does the Internet Worry You?

by mark on February 24, 2009

Following up on my previous post about fearing the internet

As a parent (or grandparent, educator, child-care-giver, whatever),

Does the Internet scare you as a parent?
Yes. I think the dangers are real.
A little. Stay vigilant.
Eh. It’s part of the world we live in.
The real world scares me more.
  
pollcode.com free polls

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The Only Thing We Have to Fear…

by mark on February 24, 2009

“Your kids may be in danger!” says the news media. They know fear gets people’s attention; attention let’s them sell advertising. The truth may just be less attention-grabbing.

Is the Internet a dangerous place where evil lurks and kids are at risk? Do we need to worry?

No. Probably not. Recent findings from a task force created by 49 state attorneys general suggests that parents can relax.

Report Calls Online Threats to Children Overblown. There is no significant problem after all according to the report.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal criticizes the report and insists that “Children are solicited every day online. Some fall prey and the results are tragic. That harsh reality defies the statistical academic research underlying the report.”

Actually, most of the children are being solicited online by other children, and most children that get involved with adults online are actively pursuing such activity. Statistics don’t always tell the whole story and the fear mongers will withhold details if it doesn’t serve their purpose.

The whole report can be found here: Enhancing Child Safety and Online Technologies.

Porn and violence have become more prevelent in various media, yet teens are having less sex and there is less real violence. Is there a relationship there? Glenn “Instapundit” Reynolds asks, are porn and violence good for America’s children? Then he says:

Maybe the porn, and the videogames, provided catharsis, serving as substitutes for the real thing. Maybe. And maybe there’s no connection at all. (Or maybe it’s a different one — research indicates that teenagers, though safer and healthier, are also fatter — so perhaps the other improvements are the result of teens sitting around looking at porn and videogames until they’re too out-of-shape and unattractive for the real thing…) Most likely, the lesson is that — once again — correlation isn’t causation, despite policy entrepreneurs’ efforts to claim otherwise.

In another report, video games do not lead to violence.

If we can trust these reports, then kids are not at increased risk of physical harm. Good! How about other detrimental psychological effects? Does it affect their brains? They’re social skills? Will it give them ADD?

Psychologist Dr. Helen Smith asks, Do social websites harm children’s brains? Helen points to the news about a neuroscientist, Susan Greenfield, who refers to sites like Facebook, Twitter and the like and says, “My fear is that these technologies are infantilising the brain into the state of small children who are attracted by buzzing noises and bright lights, who have a small attention span and who live for the moment…”

Wait a minute… haven’t kids of all ages, over the past century, been attracted by buzzing noises and bright lights? Don’t all teenagers have small attention spans and live for the moment? That’s a safe bet.

But let us not be so quick to be entirely dismissive. Parents are witnesses to their kids growing up around 24/7 cartoon cable channels, Internet access, Facebook, YouTube, cell phones, and instant messaging. Many have seen that when they don’t impose limits, hell breaks loose. Raising teenagers regardless of technology is one big exercise in imposing limits.

So what’s a parent to do in the absense of a definitive study that gives us clear results on if technology is beneficial or detrimental? Set limits, of course. Make sure the kids are finding time to do all of the other things that kids should be doing. Everything in moderation. Take everything the media tells you with a grain of salt and trust your parental instincts.

Here is a smattering of additional links that I’ve collected over the past few months that I want to share, but don’t feel like addressing individually right now. Enjoy.

Digital Overload Is Frying Our Brains

More ‘Screen Time’ Linked to Poor Fitness in Girls

How the Internet Damages Our Culture

Culture Makes the Internet Cruder, Not the Other Way Around

Study links TV and depression

What are your thoughts on all of this?

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That Diabolical ComputerTime!

by mark on December 18, 2008

This week, ComputerTime was recommended in an article in USA Today called “Gifts that are Good for You“. Yay! The author of the article turns out to be a Mom that actually has been using the software for a while and she really liked it.

For the harried parents of a computer addict: Just send them to softwaretime.com. Here they can download a free two-week trial of the diabolical ComputerTime software. (If they like it, offer to spring for the $39 permanent version.) The program lets a parent set time limits. The kids get passwords to log on for their allowed periods and are blessedly, quietly, automatically logged off when their time expires. No screaming arguments, no sneaky midnight Facebook sessions.

She didn’t even touch on Time Tokens or that you can have one set of limits across all of the computers on your home network. But I like the “diabolical” label that she puts on it. Why haven’t we used that in our marketing?  Hmmm.

Have you tried ComputerTime yet? If you have, we would enjoy hearing how it works out for your family.  If you haven’t tried it out, it’s available as a 14-day free trial, so why not give it a shot?

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I have lots of friends. I don’t think I could count them all. You know, the types of people that you could go out to dinner with once in a while, have a few drinks at a happy hour with, and you see them every once in a while.

Then I have my really good friends. You know, the ones that will actually be there for you for the rest of your life. The kind that will drop everything for you when you really need something. These are the ones that you have fun with all of the time. And you can say or do anything to them and they might even get mad at you for a little while, but they’re loyal to you as you would be loyal to them. I could probably count those on my fingers and toes.

You make those really good friends by investing a lot into them over time. Being roommates. Spending endless hours on a team working the late nights to get a software release out the door. Sharing New Years Eve year after year, a ski trip, or regular road trips to fun places. Being part of the group that always helps each other move from one home to the next, or throwing baby showers for each other. Encouraging your friends to take a risk and being there for them even if things go bad. Good times. Bad times.

Hal in Toronto writes in the New York Times about how he was really proud of the fact that he had 700 friends on Facebook. Time to throw a party! He creates the event on Facebook and sends out his invitations.

Fifteen “Will Attends”, Sixty “Maybes”. Should be a good time!

“On the evening in question I took a shower. I shaved. I splashed on my tingly man perfume. I put on new pants and a favorite shirt. Brimming with optimism, I headed over to the neighborhood watering hole and waited.

“And waited.

“And waited.

“Eventually, one person showed up.”

Clicking on that “Accept Invitation to be Hal’s Friend” button wasn’t really much of an investment on the part of these so-called friends. Hal ponders the situation:

I would learn, when I asked some people who didn’t show up the next day, that “definitely attending” on Facebook means “maybe” and “maybe attending” means “likely not.” So I probably shouldn’t have taken it personally. But the combination of alcohol and solitude turned my thoughts to self-pity. Was I really that big of a loser? Or was it that no one wants to get together in real life anymore? It wasn’t Facebook’s fault; all those digital pals were better than nothing. For chipping away at past friendships and blocking honest new efforts, you really have to blame the entire modern world. People want to hang out with you, I assured myself. They just don’t have the time.

Hal, unless your last name is “9000“, I suggest that you leave the digital pals behind you. They are just made up of 1′s and 0′s and when you log off at the end of the night, they are erased from memory. Get back to the real friends that are in the real world and forge deeper bonds with them. They are probably sitting behind a glowing monitor counting their Facebook Fakefriends just like you were, and feeling about as empty as a result.

You might only have a dozen or so of those flesh-and-blood, loyal friends, but they are the ones who are really worth spending the time with. And when Facebook goes bankrupt some day and shuts down, you don’t have to worry about losing touch with your real friends.

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Is Myspace Good for Society?

April 24, 2008

According to some experts, the mainstream media has been unfair to social networking sites like MySpace, and Facebook. School principles even send memos home, warning parents to beware of the dangers of the popular web hangouts that kids are increasingly spending time on. A handful of people who study these types of things were asked [...]

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