As the years had advanced from the dinosaur days, technology has taken over the world. Teenagers spend most of their time on the Internet instead of watching television. They are busy updating their statuses or tweeting every other minute.
Twitter and Facebook are very fun to have. They are a great way to stay connected with friends and family all over the world. However with advantages, there are always disadvantages. The Internet is easily one of the most dangerous places to be.
As everyone knows, “Don’t talk to strangers!” is what parents often tell their child not to do, but that is not always the way. Facebook can be a great source for pedophiles, kidnappers, and other types of crazy people to get the information they need. Experts say they should use the same common sense online as they do in the outside world.
Please avoid putting any type of personal information that you do not want other people to see on the Internet. According to an article by NBC4 in 2010, companies and schools look at their potential students or in a job application on Facebook. A survey by education company Kaplan shows that among the top 500 colleges nationwide, 10 percent of them use social networking data to evaluate students. Once it goes on the Internet it never goes away.
The Internet, if not used correctly, can be torture to some people. We all know the term for it, cyber bullying. As cowardly as it sounds, people still torment other people even after lectures, songs, and movies say otherwise. Cyber bullying is the main cause for suicides right now, but it never resolves the problem. Cyber bullying statistics from the I-SAFE foundation show that 1 in 3 young people have experienced cyber threats online. And over half of young people do not tell anyone including their parents. Girls are somewhat more likely than boys to be involved in cyber bullying. So please stop the torture, no one likes to see the population of the United States to be decreasing over stuff like this.
And then there is Twitter. Twitter has rapidly grown to be more popular than Facebook according to a USA Today article. Numbers showed that fewer than one in 10 teens were using Twitter early on. But now that parents, grandparents, neighbors, parents’ friends and anyone in-between started friending them on Facebook and their space was no longer theirs anymore. Here at HHS the same has happened, the herd has migrated to Twitter. Tweeting is an addiction. Unlike FB, Twitter is meant to be used frequently, which gets information out quickly with only 140 characters at a time. A dream of mine would be to trend at some point in my life. Which brings us to sub tweets. Sub tweets are tweets of people referring to other people without saying that it is. Some people may think it is smart and sneaky to do, but eventually people catch on and figure it out.
It has been said that a picture says a thousand words. Technology had the idea of putting a handy dandy camera on cell phones. This invention was fantastic, taking a picture with a phone, how exciting. But once again people have found a way to find an evil way to use it. Posting embarrassing or inappropriate photos of someone on Facebook or Twitter can damage a person’s reputation. People get fired from their jobs or get into other serious trouble by the stuff that is being posted on the Internet.
To avoid any of these crises, make sure you think very hard on what the outcome will be once it is done. If you do not want people knowing your personal life then do not put any of it on the Internet or make your profiles private to where only friends and family can see. And if you do not want to be picked on by other people then you should not do it to other people to make yourself feel better about yourself or that you think you will be more popular. It actually goes the other way around, no one want to be friends with a bully.
So my advice to all Hastings High School students it to be nice and be safe when you are on the Internet.
