When seat belts were first introduced, auto makers did not want to install them into their cars, feeling that it would add an unnecessary expense to the cost of a car. What does that have to do with cyberbullying in social media? The conclusion that I draw is based on the same reason: cost. Many people wonder how so much cyberbullying can occur online. After all, shouldn’t the companies/sites do more to help prevent it? The plain and simple truth is that the companies rea

How many Facebook friends do you have? How many “real” friends do you have? What’s the ratio? If the ratio is more than 2:1, I say that you have too many Facebook friends. Really, it should be less than 1:1, since in a perfect world, you’d want to stay in touch with all of your friends, but I’ll let that one slide for now. I was looking at my own Facebook account recently and I realized that I have too many myself. It starts innocently enough. You meet someone and think

The truth is that there is no silver bullet that will keep your kids safe from inappropriate or dangerous content online. I wish that there was, because I’d make sure that everyone had it. After reading that, you might conclude that the best option is to avoid online activity altogether. That’s not an option either, for several reasons: It won’t stop the haters It just means that you’ll be unaware of it It deprives your children from learning valuable skills The Haters Let

Over the years, I’ve had more retail sales jobs than I care to count. At one of them, my manager, Rob, gave me some excellent advice on how to improve my sales. I kept asking people, “Can I help you?” or “Can I help you find something?” It was so easy for customers to shut me down simply my saying “No.” Rob taught me that I would do much better if I asked opened-ended questions or questions that required more than a one word answer. As parents, we often have the same issu

I have advocated in favor of Digital Citizenship education on this platform in the past. With all that I have seen this summer, I feel the need to make another plea for educators, our public schools and our institutions to invest in digital literacy for all. We are just over half-way through the summer months but the digital transgressions are plentiful: plagiarism, unauthorized use of music, email hacks, adults behaving irresponsibly on social media, and teens sharing their

When trying to keep kids safe from the dangers of online activities, parents should take advantage of every tool/resource at their disposal. Unfortunately, they often don’t take advantage of what may be their best resource – their older children. Social media is only a teenager. Facebook was launched in February 2004, meaning that it’s not even a teenager; it’s only a tween! Why that’s important is because as parents of kids who are using social media, we cannot relate to

Kik is popular with kids for several reasons. I’ve been using it for several months now. Mostly observing how people use the app and how they treat each other on it. Here’s my conclusion: parents should not let their children use the app. Here’s why: I am not one to blame any app or piece of technology for what happens on it. When something goes wrong, I blame the person that committed the inappropriate behavior. And let me tell you, there is a lot of inappropriate beha