Social networking starts with your closest friends and family, because they are the people who matter most to you. The network is a remarkable tool for keeping families close. According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, technology is bringing American families together throughout the day and across continents as children grow up and move away. It will do the same across the globe. And social sites can even serve you and your family as a hub for sharing the day’s news. As the social network grows, families can forge generational online homes that keep parents, children, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins in touch.

Mother Twitters that Daughter scored two goals in the game today while Dad instant messages Son that he’s bringing pizza for dinner, so don’t eat too much after school…. The whole family uploads pictures to Flickr, where they can be shared by grandparents, aunts and uncles anywhere on the globe…. A family blog updates generations on who is doing well in school, genealogy discoveries and stores a record of important family events for posterity…. A son working overseas publishes a lifestream that keeps family back home in touch with his day-to-day life. With messaging systems to augment these more “permanent” family documents, the history of a nuclear mom-dad-and-two-kids can weave a worldwide living document that keeps people closer than they have been able to be since the dawn of human migration…. Kids have the opportunity to develop friendships all over the world, to learn many cultural and personal lessons, but they need the guidance on which they rely from parents to take these steps, too.

Teaching your children to use social networks safely and smartly creates the setting for lifelong connections, because as many as a quarter of eight- to 11-year olds are already using social sites intended for old kids and adults. It takes the same kind of care and attention that teaching your kids anything does and, depending on what age your children are, we strongly recommend that you accompany them online and help them select the social networks they will use—they are, after all, like virtual neighborhoods that augment the lessons of the real world friendships and influences they encounter outside your home.

Parents need to set out guidelines for online behavior and, especially, what information kids will share when participating in a social network. One of the great features of social networks is the chance for “engaged anonymity,” a form of sharing information without disclosing personal identity. Kids should learn this kind of interaction from the very beginning, and that it is only after long exchanges do people online approach what we would call “friendship” in the real world.

Children’s sense of privacy is not as deeply developed as an adult’s, who will go into social networks aware that they should conceal their real name, real-world address or, even, home town, because these little details can be used to ensnare them in a compromising conversation. Even posting a picture with a prominent landmark or the name of a school visible can open a child unaware of the potential for abuse to apparently well-informed adults or other children (“Oh, you go to Truman Junior High? I know someone who goes there….”) who can exploit a little knowledge about a child to learn where they live, what they like and how to victimize them.

At the same time, the online world is a very safe place to learn to set limits, because there is very little personal cost to saying “no” to anyone. For example, my daughter has used her bozo filter on various sites to shut off any communication from people who don’t play by her rules. In at least one case, an adult who was posing as a child spent a lot of time “playing” with her on a popular social site. My wife and I had become suspicious of this character who was hanging around our 12-year-old too much, so we’d been sitting with her when she was online. One evening, the character used by this guy asked a sexual question. In an instant, she shut him off and sent him to permanent exile in her bozo filter—she cannot see or hear from him again. She used a word that I didn’t think was part of her vocabulary, but it made clear that, even at this age, she knew when to put the trash out.

The point of this story is not to scare you, though you should be attentive to what your kids are doing online. If this makes you uncomfortable, I’d ask you to consider the alternative ways a child might learn these lessons in the real world. Kids are learning to set boundaries aggressively online and not having to wait until they find themselves alone, without their parents, at a dance or party where someone surprises them with uncouth or dangerous behavior. If you help them establish what those boundaries will be, as any good parent does, they will take those standards with them into adulthood and online. Social networks, especially where there are age limits for members, are excellent practice for the socializing our kids will do in the adult world.

As a parent of two teens, I’ve found that kids associate games with social activity as much as they do the messaging and photo-sharing activities that adults focus on. For example, World Of Warcraft, an immersive (that is, the player becomes a character in a 3D world) game, has long been one of my kids’ favorit hangouts online. They have friends in that game with whom they do non-game activities, such as a form of collaborative writing called “role playing” in which all the participants contribute to the writing of a story in the role of characters. “RPing,” as it is called, can be engrossing and strange to parents, because you’ll find a group of trolls and wizards who are standing there typing among themselves, saving a version of a story they are together telling on each member’s PC or the server.

Don’t be surprised if your kids discovery novel ways to use a social network. Simply be sure you have a good idea who your kids are talking with online, just as you do with their school friends. And keep talking with them as they grow into new social experiences. Relax, you know how to do this if you’ve raised your kids this far.

Let’s look at a few of the critical questions parents often ask about their kids’ life online (if you’d like to ask a question for inclusion in future versions of this article, click this link).

Where can I get a good introduction to social networking for my kids? How can I teach my kids to use these sites wisely?

Digizen.org, a project of Childnet International, has assembled a very good site that covers everything from social manners to cyber-bullying (another Pew Internet & Americal Life report found that one-third of kids say they have been bullied online). Also, OnGuardonline.gov, a site operated by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, has a solid set of guidelines for parents and kids about sharing information online and in social networks.

Is there a list of child-safe social networks and sites?

Soon, LenovoSocial will have a growing list of children’s sites and networks, reviewed by you and other parenets, as well as kids. In the meantime, there are several excellent lists of sites, such as this one at socialmediamom.com, which has been supplemented by other parents who added comments on kid-friendly sites in the comments section.

I’d only add that there are a lot of sites, such as MySpace, that are popular with kids but that don’t really make significant efforts to keep kids safe. On MySpace, the design of any page can be extensively modified by members, and usually have been. That means they can have audio and video or photos that may be extremely graphic for younger children. It is best to do your own research and introduce your kids to the networks you’d like them to use.

What sites do you recommend for young kids?

We’ll have reviews soon, but you are always in safe territory with Disney and other sites operated by companies that have put their reputations at stake when promising a kid-friend experience, including:

• ToonTown (Disney)
• ImBee, aimed at kids 8 to 11
• Club Penguin (Disney)
• BeingGirl (Procter & Gamble), aimed at young girls entering puberty
• WebKinz
• Neopets

The safest sites are those that have scripted (that is, prewritten phrases the kids choose) or filtered chat programs, so only certain phrases are offered as options or language is closely filtered. In each of these sites, the conversation is scripted and closely monitored by adults who are watching for abuse.

What information is it safe for my kids to share?

Explain to your kids that a “handle,” or username, is a good place to start creating a private life online. Have your kids come up with a name they are going to use and run it by you. Next, I strongly suggest that you encourage your kids to give out only the state or country they live in, leaving any local information out of their online profiles. If they do these two things, it is far easier for them to share real details of their interests, hobbies, fashion, sports and favorite television shows, movies or music, since those are the topics around which they are most likely to form online friendships.

How do I set my kids’ social network accounts to reveal no personal information?

Here are three videos from kids.getwise.org you should have close at hand to explain how to set the privacy settings on Facebook, MySpace and Xanga, popular social sites with teens.

Facebook privacy settings explained (play video)

MySpace privacy settings explained (play video)

Xanga privacy settings explained (play video)

Tags: kids, parenting, parents, privacy, safety, social networking

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 at 5:46 pm and is filed under Lenovo Feature Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.