I think that now, more than ever, internet safety is something that should be paid attention to and learned by everyone. As technology continues to progress there are more ways that internet users become vulnerable. There are so many websites that require giving some amount of personal information in order to use them. Also, there are many social networking sites that encourage people to post their personal information for everyone else to see. I think that initially people think only of how using these sites is beneficial to them, not how it could potentially cause them problems. I think that is honestly the biggest problem with internet safety today. People aren’t worried enough about what could happen to them through the internet if they aren’t careful.
I think personally there are some changes I will be making with my internet usage. Particularly I will be putting more restrictions on access to my facebook profile. I currently don’t have it open to everyone, but I think it would be a really good idea to limit the information available to some of the people who are my facebook “friends.” Some of the people I feel I should add because I do know them but I don’t necessarily know them anywhere near well enough to give them access to all the details of my life. Another thing to change is to make sure that when I need to use my email address for something on the internet I will be more careful about making sure I uncheck any boxes saying they can give my email address to other people. I think overall I need to work on changing my mentality on using the internet safely. I need to start thinking about what could potentially happen rather than thinking that something bad won’t happen to me.
This knowledge applies specifically to teens and students I will potentially be teaching because they will be using the internet very frequently and will be asked to provide personal information on many websites. They will be at huge risk for running into potential problems if they are not made aware of the dangers of the internet. Teaching them the importance of internet safety and how to use the internet safely will be an invaluable tool in their lives.
I taught my sister about internet safety. It went well and she was interested in the information I was able to share with her. She was particularly interested in the way to tell whether a website is secure or not. When I shared with her that https is different that http she thought it was pretty cool!
