Internet Safety Tips for High School Students with Christine Martinez

Good Morning JJAB Listeners, my name is Christine Martinez, Youth resource specialist with JJAB. I am here to give you tips in online safety. Being online- connected through some sort of device is how you are currently living your life. As you spend more of your time there, it can be easy to over share, mess up your computer and possibly get messages from creepy people. The truth is there are some risks involved in socializing, playing and communicating online. 

Lets talk about how you can protect yourself, your information, and your computer:

Protecting yourself: 

Use privacy setting to restrict who can see and post on your profile. Many social networking sites, chat rooms and blogs have privacy settings. Find out how to turn these setting on, and then do it. 

Limit your online friends to people you know.

Learn about location based services. Many phones have GPS technology, and there are applications that let you find out where your friends are… and let them find you. Set your privacy settings so that only people you know personally can see your location.

Trust your gut if you feel threatened or uncomfortable because of someone or something you find online.

Do you download apps? If you do, you might be giving the apps developers access to your personal information- maybe even info that’s not related to the purpose of the app. 

Protect your information:

Some information should stay private- Your social security and family financial information should stay private. 

Keep your passwords private. The longer your password, the harder to crack. Don’t share your passwords with anybody, including your best friends or your bf or gf. 

Don’t reply to text email or pop messages that ask you to reply with personal information. These messages may be fake and sent to steal your information. 

Protect your computer: 

Be cautious about opening attachments or clicking on links. They may contain viruses or spyware. 

Learn about security software and how your computers are protected. 

Remember that sometimes, free stuff like games, ring tones, or screen savers can hide viruses and spyware. 

Whether its your laptop or phone don’t leave it in public- even for a minute. If it goes missing, all the important information stored on it like your messages and photos may fall into the wrong hands. 

Regardless of how fast your fingers fly on a keyboard, phone or tablet the best tool you have to help avoid risks online is your brain. Asking a few questions first can help you protect yourself your friends, and your computer. To find out more in how you can protect yourself online visit: 

Onguardonline.gov

Commonsensemedia.org.