What Parents Need to Know About Twitter

This summer I'm doing a series on What Parent's Need to Know about *insert some type of online thing here*... because it's not just parents that need to know these things but teachers too AND if there is one thing we all know it's that online stuff changes so often it's hard to keep up (especially when you aren't even using that app/program)!

Today I'm talking about Twitter.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm actually not on many social medias... this includes twitter.

However, I do check it every so often because sometimes there are discount codes to be had on there or information on something I may be interested in it.  But I look up all of that without actually having an account.

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As per usual, here are some takeaways I got after reading up more about this Twitter.

1)  As I already mentioned, anyone can see what you post.  The default settings on Twitter make it so that what you share is automatically shared with everyone but this can be changed (and likely should be changed for many people... not just children).  Check the privacy settings and change it so that a reader first needs permission to read what your child/student is posting.

2)  You might want to look further into the privacy settings as you can also turn off direct messaging (so no messages will hopefully come through from random people and turn off the location sharing feature.

3)  Blocking accounts is an option (and in my opinion should be used).  If an account is causing problems with your child/student it's not worth it... block it and move on (and hopefully share with them how it's important to know who you are following or who is following you).

4)  Information spreads fast.  We've all seen those pictures of a teacher wanting to teach her class how fast something can travel where those that see the image are supposed to post where they are and I'm sure it doesn't take more than a couple of days for that image to reach the other side of the world.  If an account is public your tweets could be spreading that fast as well.  It's also an important conversation to be had that even if you remove a tweet (which is possible) that it may be too late... someone may have seen it and there is nothing stopping them from taking a screen shot and sharing it later.  You may not think that silly tweet that you were clearly joking about could amount to anything but it could, and someone will likely take it differently from how you intended it and it could resurface one day down the road when you are applying for that really important job.

5)  Finally, just like the rest of the internet, there is sensitive content everywhere (and it isn't always labelled as such).  You may not mean to look up what you did and may have been scrolling through what you thought was a 100% fine hashtag when something inappropriate comes up.  Much like using the internet comes with a lot of responsibility so does Twitter.

And there you have it, some information on Twitter.  

I've written on some other topics about what we all need to know about different things (last weeks was Fortnite.