Question

In a well organized composition of 15-20 lines, elaborate the following:

Assume that you are the parent of teenagers who visit social networking sites. You also write the blog that is followed by your teenagers, their friend and their parents, and you want to educate them. Write a paragraph that explains some of the dangers of social networking sites and list specific ways teenagers can protect themselves.

Answer 1

Social networking sites if used only for social networking are indeed good to interact with friends, colleagues and relatives. They are an excellent source of developing friendships and contacts. However, there are undesirable elements also on the social networking sites so one has to be extremely careful. Very often, these sites have people who want to abuse children and young adults. Under the guise of being a new friend they collect pictures and can later distort the same images of you and repost them. Hence, on most social networking sites it is not advisable to put your pictures. You can upload pictures but none specifically of you. Very often untrustworthy people try to get your address and contact number. They may then use this information to harass you online later. Your profile should never have your contact number or address. Also, many people on these sites say let us meet over a cup of coffee. Unless you know something about the person, such a meeting can be highly risky. You do not know if the person has any ulterior motive for meeting you. So, it is definitely best to avoid in person meetings. Very often if we have strong opinions to something posted, we should temper our negative comments to such postings. You do not want to ridicule another person on social media as they can definitely pay you back with even nastier comments. If you are subject to harassment on any social media site it would be good to report this to the site administer immediately. It may also be prudent if there is harassment to take a temporary break from social media for your own well being.