<p>FYI:</p>
<p>THANK YOU for this post, NMR!!!</p>
<p>Agree....applicants to college (and for that matter, college graduates applying for jobs) should think twice about what they post on facebook as it can damage their image they hope to project. But I do wonder why an applicant would not have the wisdom to use a private setting that only gives friends access. They should still watch what they put on their site but surely they don't need to let the whole world have access.</p>
<p>Here, here Soozievt, and if we moms know this...hopefully the kids do? If not, then they are too dumb to get into the highly selectives.</p>
<p>I don't think I would call the kids "too dumb" Teenagers are teenagers....and they sometimes have lapses in judgement just like adults do. They are not dumb. As parents, we can hope we raised them well, but they don't always listen to everything we tell them or 95% of what happens at frat parties wouldn't happen.</p>
<p>I think that sometimes younger people (such as high school kids) can be very intelligent and still do things that are ill advised and that they mightn't do as adults, such as leave their Myspaces or their Facebook pages open to the world. That's why I posted the article: to remind the students who read this forum (and their parents) how what they post on social networking sites can come back to haunt them if they are not careful. As soozievt notes, an obvious solution is to use privacy settings. </p>
<p>I think we all also have to recognize that teenagers are still young enough that they sometimes sort of cannot conceive of the fact that what they post online (esp. without privacy settings) is out there for the whole world to see. They think only of their friends viewing their pages and don't have a good and accurate grasp on just how big that audience can be! </p>
<p>I think it's our duty as parents to remind them. I also think that even kids who are well brought up and are very nice kids in their real lives sometimes might choose to use language online (on these sites, or in emails, etc.) that we adults would find offensive. They very well might/do write things that they would never say, in the same way that adults write things in emails that they might never say to a person's face.</p>
<p>Bottom line: kids, make sure your social networking site pages are private and do not post things that would make a college adcom not want to admit you.</p>
<p>Even putting aside issues of questionable content, it's also important to keep in mind that sites such as MySpace and Facebook can be vehicles for identity theft and stalkers. Lots of teens post identifying information such as birth dates, city of residence, phone numbers, all of which can be used to trace a person's identity. Add the fact that often times students will join open networks or "friend" posters they really don't know and it's a recipe for problems.</p>
<p>I don't do MySpace or Facebook, but my kids do. My younger son accidentally left it open on the family computer, so when I sat down, there it was. My D is one of his friends, so I clicked on her picture to make it bigger because it was one I had not seen. Of course it took me to her page, and I was flabbergasted. Not by the pictures or text--it was all ok--but by the song she had playing in the background. Every other word was vulgar and I'm not exaggerating. I strongly suggested she change the song, which she finally did, but my son has not left it up on my computer lately for me to look at, so she may have changed it back again! :D I must say I was quite surprised that she chose that song (and seemed to think nothing of it) because she is quite a decent young lady usually. So kids, be sure to choose your music carefully as well as other content.</p>
<p>Kids are for the most part more "technically" savvy than we are. My point being that when setting up their accounts online they have an option of setting it to private. They are savvy enough to know that if it is not they can run into trouble, such as on myspace with kids being approached by adults up to no good etc. How many times have they heard it? How many times do they have to? We're not talking Middle Schoolers here, we're talking educated High Schoolers applying to top colleges.
Smart kids set their profiles and any groups they jointo private, accessible only to their friends, dumb ones don't. It's really that simple.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, it's really not that simple. Even if you set your profile and groups to private, there are still things over which you have no control such as who the members of your groups really are or how the info they are able to access is used or distributed. </p>
<p>Furthermore, while most high schoolers and college students consider themselves technologically savvy, in reality, most are just "user comfortable" and are babes in the woods compared to those who really have a sophisticated level of expertise. How many typical college freshmen and high school seniors understand the risks of wireless networks and know how to set up a wireless network with appropriate firewall protection, high level security coding of the network access, turning off broadcasting of the network SSID and setting up encryption of data transmission? I can't tell you the number of times I am out and about with my lap top and stumble upon wireless networks without sufficient protections to thwart mining of personal info or the interception of data transmissions which for a real technically savvy evil doer would present a gold mine of opportunity for ID theft, theft of credit card numbers etc. The potential risks go so far beyond the consequences of some dopey ill advised postings of questionable content.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that even after you set your privacy settings on Facebook or MySpace, even after you set up your firewall, security code your wireless network, turn off SSID broadcasting and encrypt your data transmissions, the only thing over which you have absolute control is the content of what you post. Any one who posts information that is identifiable to them on line creates a degree of risk. The more info, the greater the risk obviously.</p>
<p>Ok, I'm done with my paranoid ranting ;) .</p>
<p>M&K there is an option to only allow friends in groups to view your profile. Unfortunately it is tucked away somewhere. Obvi they don't want just any person that joins a group to have access to their info. Many groups have open enrollment. I would guess that this is exactly how schools are viewing prospective students. The students join groups for the schools they are interested in, and have their security settings set to allow any and all members of said group access. NG. Any weirdo, or professor, or admit can be a member of said group, thus getting any particular the student posts! The de-select is under a separate tab in the privacy setting, so it could be potentially omitted by the less diligent (sp?). A great way to weed out the less serious students, really.</p>