YouTube: Benjamin Netanyahu Uses This Website to Present Israel's Position

Keeping Teens Safe on Social Media Networks

I’m a great supporter of social media networks such as Twitter and Facebook for business connections. Yet I understand that these places can be stalking grounds for cyberbullies who prey on insecure teens.

Sue Shellenbarger’s Work & Family column in the December 17th Wall Street Journal -- "Cyberbully Alert: Web Sites Make It Easier to Flag Trouble” -- is an excellent source of information on this subject for parents and teen educators.

The article explains the different abuse reporting systems on MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube, then concludes with this paragraph, with which I wholeheartedly agree:

Then, join the sites your child uses and learn log-in information and URLs. This will help you flag problems effectively.

Only recently I suggested this to a mother of a teen who wanted to join Facebook. The mother didn’t want to be bothered learning about this site so she told the daughter she couldn’t join Facebook. But what I wonder is whether the mother is making a major error because her daughter will probably join Facebook in secret, and the mother has given up the opportunity to police her daughter’s use of Facebook.

The article also quoted Parry Aftab, the executive director of WiredSafety.org. I hadn’t heard of this organization, so I went on the site and was impressed by the available information. If you need help dealing with cyberbullying, check out this site.

The Email In-Box: How Many Emails – Let Me Count the Ways

Last night I deleted approximately 950 messages from one of my email accounts. Some of these messages I had clicked on and then saved for later reading. Others I hadn’t opened yet.

What made me take this drastic step? In recent days I had repeatedly reached 1000 messages, in which case my email account bounced back additional messages.

Therefore, I bit the bullet and said to myself: “You will never give your full attention to those 950 messages. Just delete them and take the risk that you’ve deleted something important.”

Most of the time I can’t understand people who don’t use email at all. Yet sometimes, such as when I force myself to delete 950 messages, I ponder how much simpler life was before the advent of email, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Friendfeed (the most recent social media platform for which I’ve signed up), etc.

In a nod to fair disclosure, I have also been unsubscribing to all the email advertisements for which I usually just click delete. I’ve decided to take the extra time to click on the unsubscribe buttons, some of which work and some of which don’t. I’m not at all sure I ever agreed to get many of these emails. So now I’ve taken the active step of getting rid of them.

Recently I got two different emails announcing a new book. Each of these emails was quite long, going on and on. I skimmed the emails, then decided to do a good deed:

I replied to these emails suggesting in each case that the person write a much shorter email with a clear headline and bullet-point benefits as to why we should act on the email. I explained that we are all so very busy that long emails are just way too much. Both people responded with thanks, so apparently PZ the Do-Gooder Scrooge didn’t step on any toes those times.

But, honestly, that’s why Twitter with a maximum of 140 characters is so great – it keeps all of our tweets short. Who’s the famous writer of the 19th Century (or 18th Century) who apologized for writing a long letter because he didn’t have time for a short letter? It’s true that I often have to rewrite my tweets to stay within 140 characters. And I’m grateful for that limitation.

If only email had a limitation of 140 characters – or I’d even settle for a limitation of 280 characters.

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Do-Gooder Scrooge, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Friendfeed

Technology Has Its Dark Side

I’ve spent a great deal of time trying to figure out the steps for the Miller Mosaic site www.estateplanningforyou.com to utilize the functions of 1ShoppingCart.

Every single screen option in 1ShoppingCart has multiple decision choices and, while the support staff is quite helpful, the staff is not able to tell me which one of two choices is the better choice for me.

I even unsuccessfully tried to find an ebook to explain the decisions, although someone on Twitter did point me to YouTube videos that I’ll watch.

Why bother learning this new terrain? Because the technology when hooked up correctly will automatically fulfill functions that used to be done by hand. Thus, when I am eventually successful, this will be a tremendous system to have on www.estateplanningforyou.com.

Meanwhile, after struggling with this new learning challenge, I participated in a call with MaryPat Kavanagh, www.queenofmarketing.com, about utilizing the new Facebook layout. And, again, while there are all kinds of nifty things available, the things are only nifty if you can actually do them.

I understand how some people decide to totally stay out of the social media and ecommerce spaces on the internet. And sometimes, when my mind is exhausted by these new challenges, I wish I had never started.

Then I regain my energy and realize that this is the future. I’d rather be learning from the innovators than wait to be dragged screaming into this brave new world.

Technorati Tags:
MaryPat Kavanagh, www.queenofmarketing.com, www.estateplanningforyou.com, 1ShoppingCart, Facebook, do-gooder, Scrooge, YouTube