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Posts Tagged ‘Online Communities’

Facebook and Teens: The Silver Lining behind the Hysteria

Posted in Digital Parenting, tagged , , , , , , , , , on October 21, 2013 | 1 Comment »


Facebook logo Español: Logotipo de Facebook Fr...

Facebook logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So last week, Facebook announced that it’s changed its rules about how it handles the accounts of 13-17 year olds.  Instead of only allowing those account-holders to share their posts and information with just their own friends, and friends of friends (as it has always been)  they will now be able to share with everyone (as twitter, instagram, etc already allow.)

The response has been pretty hysterical, with headlines like “Facebook  Teens Exposed to the Entire World.” in the UK.  And “Facebook loosens privacy restrictions for minors amid cyber bullying concerns” (is there a correlation? I don’t think so) on the ever hysterical Fox News.

As the co-founder of KidzVuz, a website for kids 7-13 that is COPPA compliant, and super serious about kids’ privacy, I’m going to surprise you:  I think the loosening of the restrictions will end up being a good thing.

But notice I’m saying it will END UP being a good thing.  In and of itself, exposing kids’ private information to the world at large is not so good.  (Though the default setting will still be to share with only friends and friends of friends; you’ll have to actively opt-in for public sharing)  Kids this age don’t have the best filter when it come to what and what not to share.  They’re teenagers, after all.  And yet I still maintain that ultimately, Facebook has done us all a favor.

Look, it’s not Facebook’s fault that the law is ridiculous.  It’s not Facebook’s fault that the FTC has decided that 13 year olds are able to agree to Terms of Use.  That they no longer need to be protected from behavioral tracking.  That they are allowed to post videos of themselves for the world to see.

I mean,  who decided 13 was the age when a kid becomes an adult?  Is everyone at the FTC an Orthodox Jew?  Are they down there in Washington thinking “Well, they’ve had their Bar Mitzvahs! They’re adults!”

The truth is, kids need to be protected well past the age of 13.  Cyberbullies. Online predators. Themselves.

My hope is that Facebook’s acknowledging that the law allows them to allow kids to put themselves at risk will wake people up.  And right now, when teens are leaving Facebook in droves for newer, hipper online climes, that acknowledgement will do less harm than it might have.  Maybe when a giant like Facebook takes full legal advantage of a ridiculous law, people will notice, and do something to change the law so that it protects kids better and longer than it does right now.

Maybe the next time I go to a Bar Mitzvah, I pray for that.

 

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Blogher 2011: Let the Petty Jealousy Begin!

Posted in Social Media, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 18, 2011 | 9 Comments »


Yesterday, The Blogging Angels sent out our invitation to a small breakfast during Blogher.  Aimed (mostly) at up-and-coming bloggers, the breakfast is about learning to work with brands, to present yourself and your blog in the best light.  Already, the Twitter-sphere is a-flutter with the haves and have nots.  People wish they were invited, are jealous of those that were.  They’re hurt.  They feel excluded. You’d think that, as one of the Blogging Angels, I’d be immune to all that.

You’d be wrong.

See, all of the other Blogging Angels have been getting tweeted by the invitees “Can’t wait to meet you!” or by the non-invitees “Do you think there’s room for me, too?”  There have even been multiple tweets by people saying how much they are looking forward to meeting the Blogging Angels: @selfishmom, @c2cmom and @beccasara.  Notice any name missing from that list?

Of course logically, I know it’s silly: I am one of the people throwing the party.  I am one of the Blogging Angels, whether I’m in those tweets or not.  And, truth be told, I am the least social-media entrenched of the bunch, and the least well known. It’s not like it’s some big surprise to me to find out that fewer people know me than know the other Angels.  To some degree, that’s my choice.  My focus, for the past year, has been KidzVuz - which – while it exists in the digital space, is not a blog at all.  It’s an internet start-up, with all of the attendant business plan, fund-raising, and development issues. It’s been all-encompassing, and I’ve never been one who is particularly good at giving my all to all things. I wish I could be.  But that’s life.

I’m even hosting a second party – for 300 women – as KidzVuz, on the night before Blogher. And yet I still feel badly that I wasn’t invited to a bunch of parties  – parties that I wouldn’t have been able to go to – that very night!  It’s ridiculous, I know. But there it is. Over at Beccarama, Rebecca Levey (my KidzVuz partner and (tweeted) fellow Angel) wrote a post about party-envy. Part disclaimer (she is hosting two events during BlogHer) and part voice of reason, her central point is this: it’s not about how many parties you are invited to, but about what you make of the parties you do attend. Makes sense to me.  Now if only it felt true, too.

Look, I know that BlogHer isn’t supposed to be about the parties.  It’s meant t be about crafting your blog, developing your brand, joining the community.  But just like Twitter often feels an awful lot like Junior High, so do all Blog Conferences end up being a series of parties – which can mean a series of social slights – or social triumphs.

I wish I could be above it all.  I wish I could listen to the logical side of me that says “it doesn’t matter; it’s not about the parties; you’re hosting two of them yourself!”  But, alas, the 12 year old girl in me is still alive and well, and worried about being asked to the the seventh grade dance (The Snowball.  Nobody asked me.  I went in my Gunne Saxe dress.)

The one bright spot about watching all of this unfold is that it’s made me realize: I’m not the only one.  Prominent bloggers are angling for  invites. Even they feel left out.  So no wonder, that what with my less-than-spectacular klout score and blog-stats, I’m feeling insecure too.

I can’t help but wonder if men go through this.  Do they care if they’re invited to some industry event?  My guess is no. But neither do most businesses – male or female – have the sense of community that the Mom Blog world does. So I guess on balance, it’s not so bad.  On the one hand, I feel hurt that not only did those tweets go out without my name in them, but that none of my virtual friends even thought to tweet back “Hey!  What about @Hip2Housewife!?” On the other hand, just this weekend I had a lovely dinner with a friend – and our husbands – I met in the blogosphere.  Last week I turned a virtual friend into a real one when she came to NY.  And the person I spend the most time with in the world (aside from my husband.  At least I’m pretty sure I spend more time with him) is a friend I met through blogging, and who I can’t imagine being without.

Hopefully, I will go to BlogHer and have fun, and not care who tweets about how happy they are they met me.  Hopefully, I’ll just be happy to meet people myself.  And finally, stop worrying about what other people say or don’t say, stop minding if I’m not included in something I don’t really want to go to anyway, stop being twelve, and start being me.

Hey, it’s something to strive for.

 

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Social Media Truths to Live By

Posted in Social Media, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 26, 2011 | 6 Comments »


There are hundreds of social media experts out there, and thousands of rules.  There are SEO experts who will tell you the rules to follow to optimize your blog’s visibility, Twitter experts who will explain rules of how  to get more followers, Facebook aficionados who know the difference between a page and a profile, and the rules for using each.

And hidden among those 1000′s of rules are the ones that really matter: the social media truths.  No rules.  No “what to do’s.”  Just the plain, unvarnished, indisputable truth about social media.

Social Media Truth #1: If you sit down to Twitter before you go to the gym, you won’t make it to the gym.

Twitter is a big, giant time suck.  By the time you realize an hour has gone by, you’ll no longer have time to go to the gym.  And depending on who you are, that’s either an excellent excuse, or a big bummer.

Social Media Truth #2: There is such a thing is  TMTI:  Too Much Tweeted Information.  No one wants to read your Tweets from the bathroom, or from the bedroom, for that matter.  No one needs to be tweeted  from the delivery room between contractions. And do you honestly think we need to know the gory details of your yeast infection/athlete’s foot/other gross affliction? No.  We don’t.

Social Media Truth #3: If you tweet, or update your Facebook status during your child’s basketball game, you will miss him or her sinking the final basket to win the championship game 37 to 36.

It always happens when you’re not looking.

Social Media Truth #4: If you pity-like someone on Facebook, they will write inanities on your wall EVERY DAY forever and ever.  And since you’re the kind of person who pity-likes people in the first place that leads me to….

Social Media Truth #5: If you pity-like someone on Facebook, you will never have the heart to unlike them, no matter how annoying they are.

You FB liked that annoying guy from High School because you felt guilty for still  thinking of him, all these years later, as “that annoying guy from high school.”   Now, he’s that annoying guy on Facebook. Nice work.

Social Media Truth #6: If  to you, getting poked only means someone said hi via Facebook, you’re on Facebook too much.

‘Nuff said.

Social Media Truth #7: Your virtual friends will always be there for you…because they don’t have to be anywhere for you.  They can be wherever they are.  If they had to show up, you might find out they aren’t as “there” as you thought they were.

It’s the existential social media truth. Eat your heart out Jean Paul Sartre.

Social Media Truth #8: If you can find the octothorpe on your computer without looking at the keyboard, but you don’t even know what the word octothorpe means, you need to get off social media for a moment and get to a library. Read a book, dude. Seriously.  (it’s this thing “#” by the way)

Social Media Truth #9: Unless you’re tweeting to raise money for a charity or awareness about something essential to the betterment of mankind, asking people to “please RT” is the social media equivalent of Melissa Leo’s ill-conceived “For Your Consideration” Oscar ads.

Social Media Truth #10: If every time anything happens to you, your first thought is to post it, tweet it, or Facebook it, you need to get out more.

If the only people who care that you won a Nobel/got engaged/had a baby/baked a cake are virtual friends, you’re gonna be really out of luck when you need actual people to show up for the Nobel ceremony/baby shower/birthday party.

Social Media Truth #11: If you  chose a profile picture that doesn’t look anything like you, this will backfire.

How will it backfire?  You will meet people, and immediately see the “I thought she was better looking” look on their face. You will show up somewhere and someone will say “I thought you were younger.”  You will start to think you really do look like the profile picture version of yourself and be gravely disappointed when you see a picture of your real, true self.

Social Media Truth #12:  If, one day, you (or a friend of yours) post embarrassing pictures of you on Facebook,  that will be the day every person you ever knew will decide to find out what ever happened to you.   And they will think that what happened to you is that you turned into a horrible lush too stupid to realize that once it’s up on Facebook, it’s there forever.

Got any more Social Media truths?  Lay ‘em on me!

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