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Online Profile Tips
Use these tips to talk about information teens can usually share safely in online profiles. Talk about how the tips also apply to blogs, e-mail, and instant messages (IMs).
With online sites like Facebook and Twitter, teens can talk to friends and family anywhere in the world. The challenge is to make sure that they carry on these conversations safely.
Discuss these tips with teens to make sure they understand how someone can misuse private information and to help them plan information that they will use for their own online profiles.
- Print one or more copies of the Online Profile Tips and give it to the teens you are working with.
- Read each of the tips together and discuss examples of safe information.
- Have teens share some options for the categories that they can share online safely. Encourage teens to be creative, while still making sure that they are safe. Teens can jot their ideas on the margin of the tip sheet to help them remember them later.
- Explore some of the resources on the NetSmartz website. The site was created by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Boys & Girls Clubs of America and provides online resources on Internet safety for children and teens. Compare the information in the Online Profile Tips to the suggestions on NetSmartz.
- Go to an online site like Facebook or MySpace, and set up an profile with teens. Use the Online Profile Tips to work through safe answers to the questions that the profile form requests. Talk about alternatives that teens can enter to make sure they have many options to choose among.