Please take note of this!!
A recent study by New York University puts forward to case that this habit could put your kids in danger!
By examining parents' postings on social networking sites the researchers found that our online habits could compromise kids' safety and well-being in any number of ways...
One example is people trolling parents' profiles, depending on your security settings, can deduce your kids' first and last names, birth dates, where they live and other personal information ... which turns them into easier prey for identity fraud or worse still - abduction.
Now, this does not mean that we shouldn't share anything at all about our darlings on social media, we just need to be mindful not to make these common mistakes:
- Blasting your child's birth day or birth date online. "Today is Thomas's birthday!". While this is a lovely thing to share and seems innocent- it's a prime way for observers to collect a key piece of personal information which could lead to potential issues.
- Using your kid's name. Now this one is very hard to avoid! The report concludes that a child is much more likely to trust a stranger who calls him by name.
- Not making sure your pages are set to private.This is what we meant by your security setting above. 13% of the study's respondents had their online profiles set to public. On Instagram, posts are fully public by default, so you have to manually change it. Many parents assume their pages are private, but they are not. This means that anyone can view your child's info and photos.
- Having too many "friends." Even if your profile is set to the correct privacy settings, do you know all the people in your social network? Make sure you know them well enough to share this information with them.
How much info do you share about your kids online?
