10 Nov 2014
In our social media rich world, ego can be boosted, and popularity rated, based on the number of friends, updates, likes, dislikes, retweets etc. Students are using mobile devices from increasingly younger ages. They will be googled in future years and undesirable online activities may prevent them from pursuing the career of their choice. A strong digital footprint is vital.
As teachers and educationalists, we need to be aware of what the popular and trending apps are, the potential dangers they may hold and how to help students secure and customise their personal privacy, identity, profile and safety.
Following are some of the current popular and trending apps, along with precautions users are encouraged to take:
- Facebook one of the most comprehensive and popular of social media tools. However, as it adds new updates, security settings change and users need to check constatnly. Older people are increasingly signing up, which means children and teenagers are leaving in large numbers and are choosing other apps.
- Instagram can be likened to an online photo album. Security settings can be customised but if settings are on public, google images may add them to its site.
- Snapchat is another photo sharing site and is extremely popular with students. Photos posted are not stored on the user's device and therefore do not use up valuable storage capacity. However, it can be used for selfies, sexting, cyber bullying etc. Users often feel a false sense of security as the images and updates self-destruct after a short time. Snapchat alerts the user if a copy has been made with screen capture but copies can now be made with other apps, eg. Snap-hack pro, Scapcapture, etc
- KIK Messenger enables instant messaging, photo sharing and audio. It is of high concern and great care is required, as it can be put on an iPad, iPod, tablet etc, even young students can send messages to a mobile phone free of charge. It is estimated that more than one-third of primary school students and a high percentage of secondary students are registered. It is a site where pornography is shared and traded. "Most students in KIK will have a sex offender contact them at some stage" Greg Gebhart of cybersmart.gov.au says.
- YouTube is still quite popular. Most Year 7 students said it was the search engine on their choice. However, as students like to make their own videos, they are moving to Vine - a video sharing service. They activel seek 'likes' for their videos. As videos in Vine are only seven seconds in length, viewers tend to watch the whole thing and are more likely to add a 'like'. Risky behaviours are becoming increasingly noticeable.
- Ask.fm and qooh.me are 'question and answer' networking sites, where users can ask a question and get an answer. Privacy settings cannot be increased as on Facebook and Twitter. Content is not monitored. Google '10 frightening facts about ask.fm all parents should know'.