Share With Care

The next time you’re online, think about what you share with others. Do you forward pictures or videos of your friends from your phone? Do you have a profile on a social network, or a blog? You have tons of opportunities to share all kinds of information – about yourself, your family, and your friends – when you’re online. Before you do, keep in mind:

 Your online actions can have real-world consequences. The pictures you post and the words you write can affect the people in your life. Think before you post and share.

Think Before You Share

What you post could have a bigger “audience” than you think.

Even if you use privacy settings, it’s impossible to completely control who sees your social networking profile, pictures, videos, or texts. Before you click “send,” think about how you will feel if your family, teachers, coaches, or neighbors find it.

Once you post information online, you can’t take it back.

You may think that you’ve deleted a comment or a picture from a site — or that you will delete it later. Know that it may still be online or saved on someone else’s computer.

Get someone’s okay before you share photos or videos they’re in.

Online photo albums are great for storing and sharing pictures. It’s so easy to snap a shot and upload it instantly. Stop and think about your own privacy — and other people’s — before you share photos and videos online. It can be embarrassing, unfair, and even unsafe to send or post photos and videos without getting permission from the people in them.

Dilemma

Your best friend forwards a message from another friend, saying mean things about someone in your class. Do you forward it to someone else? Tell your best friend that it’s not cool to forward mean messages? Do you ignore it? How would it feel if it happened to you?

~ Trainee Columnist