With the merger of Facebook and Skype some very nice features will be added to this social network site. The partnership includes SMS aka text messaging, voice chat and Facebook Connect, a popular online video chat service, that allows Facebook users to chat face-to-face, using their webcam and microphone, with their Facebook friends.

However, this may also propose a risk of unintended exposure if improperly used by children. The connections being made could prove problematic if the activity is not carefully monitored for safety.

Check out this very helpful Parental Controls Guide to help better secure your child’s Facebook profile. Monitoring software like WebWatcher on your child’s PC or WebWatcher Mobile on their BlackBerry or Android devices will help to ensure that they’re fully abiding by the Internet safety measures you’ve put in place.

According to a poll from Norton, Nearly a quarter of parents say their child has been involved in cyberbullying, with nearly 3 out of 4 saying their child was the victim in such incidents.

The security software company polled 1,068 parents, and found that (40 percent) of parents whose child “witnessed” cyberbullying “talked to their child about how best to stop it.” And girls are more often involved in cyberbullying cases than boys: “88 percent of parents revealed their daughters were victims, compared to 54 percent of sons.”

The survey also found that 52 percent of such activity takes place on social networks, like Facebook; 39 percent via cellphone and texting; and 23 percent by email.
Today, “Parents and online experts are pushing for an ‘urgent’ proposal to teach social networking etiquette in schools to tackle cyber bullying. Using Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites would be taught in schools under this proposal. As summer comes to a close a solid proposal like this would be an important step in the right direction to helping stop these kinds of abuse in their tracks.

The Federation of Parents and Citizens Associations and social networking experts say there is a desperate need that the use of social media be taught in the classrooms.

A controversial bill that makes student sexting an expellable offense was approved last week by the California Assembly Education Committee. SB919, a proposed amendment to the California Education Code, defines sexting as “the sending or receiving of sexually explicit pictures or video by means of an electronic act.” According to the AVN, the bill would only allow schools to expel students caught sexting:
•On school grounds

•Going to or from school

•During lunch period regardless of whether on or off campus

•During or in transit to or from a school sponsored activity.

Data from a 2008 National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy survey reveals:
21% of teenagers admitted to sending or posting nude or semi-nude photos to someone else
39% of all teens reporting sending them
48% of teens reported receiving them.
For teenagers, 15% admitted to sending sexually explicit images to people they only knew online
44% of teens admitted to sharing explicit materials they had been sent with others.

A recent study says there is no evidence that the recent laws put in place have banned texting while driving; and none that indicates a reduction in crashes.

“Recent studies reported Thursday by the Governors Highway Safety Association say that at least one driver was reported to have been distracted in 15 percent to 30 percent of crashes, and cell phone use and texting increase the odds of car crashes.”

The GHSA study (PDF) suggests there is no evidence cell phone or texting bans have reduced crashes.

An estimated 6,000 people are killed and 500,000 people are injured annually because someone was texting, e-mailing or talking on a mobile phone while driving. As a precaution, and to prevent these kinds of situations from ever happening, parents can monitor their teens SMS messages and emails with WebWatcher Mobile on BlackBerry devices and SMS messages on Android devices to make sure they’re behaving appropriately on and off the road.

A recent Consumer Reports article stated that “The number of teens who own smart phones has nearly tripled over the last two years, says a new study: About 4.8 million teenagers owned smart phones in April of this year, according to research firm ComScore; in April 2009, only 1.7 million teens owned smart phones.”

This explosive cell phone growth and other technology device usage increase alone make it all the more critical for parents to be cognizant of who and what their child is communicating and with whom. Parental controls and computer monitoring software like WebWatcher and WebWatcher Mobile make it possible for parents to track their child’s activity both on their PCs and on their Smartphones.

Quick Facts on Teen Cell Phone Growth:

• Boston Globe, states that “currently, 28.7 percent of teenage mobile-phone users carry smart phones, and analysts expect the number to rise above 50 percent by next year, “
• Nielsen released a study that found 55 percent of new mobile phone purchases by consumers were smart phones. That was up from 34 percent in 2010.
• Teen study: Google’s Android operating system led the way with 36 percent of the teen smart-phone market owning Android-based phones, according to ComScore.
• Apple iPhones followed with 29 percent
• Research in Motion’s BlackBerry phones were third, with 23.8 percent.

It is imperative to have open lines of communication with your children. If communication with your teen is a struggle especially during those turbulent teenage years, there are alternative ways for parents to at the very least have some reassurance in knowing that their teen is experimenting or are involved in sex at too young of an age. Parental controls and computer monitoring software like WebWatcher and WebWatcher Mobile make it possible for parents to track their child’s activity both on their PCs and on their Smartphones.

A public opinion survey from The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy provides some important stats on trends here, which highlight the importance of having these open, preventative talks early on with your teens. With One Voice 2010, a nationally representative telephone survey of 1,008 young people (aged 12-19) and 1,000 adults (age 20 and older), found these:

Quick facts:

• 46 percent of teens say parents influence their decision about sex while only 20 percent said their friends do.
• 78 percent of teens say they have all the info they need to avoid an unplanned pregnancy but 34 percent said “it doesn’t matter whether you use birth control or not, when it is your time to get pregnant, it will happen” and 49 percent said they know “little or nothing” about condoms and how to use them.
• 80 percent of teens said it’s easier for them to delay sexual activities if they could have more honest conversations with their parents.
• 63 percent of teens said that they don’t use contraception because they are scared their parents will know.
• 18 percent of teens want more info about birth control and 9 percent want more info about abstinence.
• 46 percent of teens and 73 percent of adults wish young people were getting more information about both abstinence and contraception rather than either/or.
• 87 percent of adults and 93 percent of teens agree teens shouldn’t have sex until they are at least out of high school.

It’s baffling just how many young teens get sucked into using, and even selling drugs. This is especially daunting with all of the warnings and school drug free programs out there. According to a 2009 survey about teens and drug use from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, about seven percent of 8th-grade students, 16 percent of 10th-grade students and 21 percent of high school seniors had used marijuana the month before the survey.

Tips on looking for abuse:

• Take a closer look at changes in behavior and habits
• Know your children’s friends
• Look for missing items around the house i.e. money or valuables, etc.
• Look for the wearing of new clothes or an expensive piece of jewelry
• Spending less time at the house and with family
• Keep an eye on their phone bill i.e. sudden increase in minutes or use a monitoring software like WebWatcher Mobile to see in coming SMS text messages or emails or PC monitoring software like WebWatcher to set up alerts with key words and phrases like drugs or “how to pass a drug test.”
• Make these observations before confronting the child about your suspicions
• Always keep the lines of communication open
• Catching the problem earlier makes dealing with the issue easier

From a recent parenting article: “A few years ago an officer from the computer crimes unit did a presentation at Ellington High School. In a few minutes he was able to bring up an Ellington girl’s MySpace page, figure out her full name and where she lived by comments and info on the page and then went to an appraisal site where he could see what her house looked like and even where the bedroom was in the house.”
It’s not new news that children are very tech savvy these and children as young as eight years old are lying about their ages and making Facebook accounts! “Experts who study child behavior say parents can use Facebook to help teach their children about making good decisions. Research indicates that about 90 percent of all ninth grade students are on Facebook.”

Tips for parents on safeguarding their children’s online Facebook experience:

• Do not allow children under age 13 on Facebook.
• Get your own Facebook account.
• Learn how to use the tools and the privacy settings
• Ask your child to “friend” you. If they don’t want to, a red flag should go up.
• Have your child limit their “friends” to real friends. It is not uncommon for teens to have hundreds even thousands of “friends.”
• Kids should never “friend” teachers.
• Give kids breathing room. If you are “friends” try to avoid replying to your child’s status updates and never post photos to your child’s page. Staying quietly in the background is the best.
• Teach kids to protect their privacy and use those privacy settings as much as possible.
• Communicate about the dangers and remind your child about reputations. Photos of playing beer pong do not help them get a job or get into a college. Using profanity can also damage the reputation.

There are a myriad of social networking sites available to kids these days. The best thing a parent can do is try to be informed about them and be involved with who their child is socializing with on these sites.

One of the very first things we learned when we were young was don’t talk to strangers. But the online world has a host of strangers, and the difficult challenge here is differentiating between friend and foe. Parental monitoring software like WebWatcher and WebWatcher Mobile can help parents ensure that safe socializing on your child’s PC is what is really happening.

According to the FBI the signs that your child might be at risk online:

• Your child spends large amounts of time online, especially at night
• You find pornography on your child’s computer
• Your child receives phone calls from men you don’t know or is making calls, sometimes long distance to numbers you do not recognize.
• Your child receives mail, gifts, or packages from someone you do not know.
• Your child becomes withdrawn from the family.
• Your child is using an online account belonging to someone else

The FBI suggests ways to minimize the chances of your child being victimized online:

• Communicate and talk to your child about the dangers
• Keep the computer in a common room
• Use parental controls
• Randomly check your child’s online account
• Teach your child the responsible use of online resources
• Teach your child to stay away from chat rooms
• Teach them to never arrange a face to face meeting
• Teach them to never upload photos of themselves to people they do not know
• Teach them to never download pictures from an unknown source