UNKNOWN TALKS- EPISODE 8- SAFETY ON THE INTERNET FOR TEENS

               SAFETY ON THE INTERNET FOR TEENS

                                                        -By Joane Unknown

Hello people! Today, I am going to talk about safety on the internet for teenagers. I am 13 years old, almost a teenager. I have an account on any social media platform and I personally am exposed to a lot of dangers on the internet. I want adults, parents and children, and teens to read this post and take seriously everything I am going to say. I am going to show you the dangers, my personal experiences, and how to stay safe on social media and the internet.

I got my first phone when I was six, in 2014. Internet is and has always been a dangerous place but when you are an innocent child it gets ten times more dangerous. I didn't have many special events but I clearly remember getting phone calls from unknown people who wanted something from me. And another thing I remember was watching youtube and seeing mature content that violated youtube's guidelines. Now, youtube is well secured and anything that is not okay for the platform is blocked or requires your ID to be able to watch the video. Youtube is family-friendly and is okay for children to watch because of its strict guidelines. 

When I got a bit older, I created my first Instagram account, and my mom didn't know anything about it. I hid it very well from her. I was ten and I can understand her concerns now. Nothing fantastic happened but I was getting added to groups where there were sent a lot of links for mature content, where they would require your location to find girls for you. It was a mistake but I can't delete that account because I forgot my password and it is basically lost.

There are a lot of creeps on the internet and I get a lot of messages from different guys, telling me how beautiful I am and a lot of uncomfortable questions. If you don't follow me, I post pictures of me, without my face. I only have one picture with my face. Now, if you go to my account it is not private, but I am switching it from private to business pretty often. My main reason for that is the fact that I don't want everybody to look at my pictures but at the same time, keeping my account private doesn't help me gain more audience. Audience if the most important thing for an author because if you have more audience, there is a chance of more people buying your e-books. Some of the people who see my stories are accounts made by women with only fans with 18+ pictures.

This was my personal experience with the internet, and it is not as harmful as I saw from different documentaries. Many of the predators and pedophiles moved to the Internet too. There are lots of people who have their location written in their bio. Bio is basically a space where you can say some things about yourself, put a link, and write other things you would want people to know about you. I think it is dangerous to out your location and city on an app with so many unknown people. If you are under the age of 13, I would try to avoid making these kinds of accounts because of multiple reasons. I know that children have already accounts on different social media platforms- Instagram, Tik Tok, Facebook, Gmail (it is a mailing platform but I think it fits the category), Twitter, Snapchat, and other platforms. I need to tell you that I started having accounts on these platforms when I was 9 or 10 but that doesn't mean it is right. I don't have parental control over my devices because my parents teach me how to keep myself secure from the Internet's dangers. There is an app or program named Bark which helps parents to keep their children safe from the internet's dangers, it is called Bark. I don't know how it actually works but if you google it, you will find out. 

Now hate messages or messages with sexual content from unknown people can be reported and blocked by children or teenagers who were thought about the dangers of the internet. On the other hand, there are children or teens who get messages like- "Let's meet up!" Or "Where do you live" from Unknown people. They are a trap, a trap to kidnap you if you answer them and don't realize that, the person behind the account is a predator who wants to take advantage of children and teens' innocent minds. These things can and up terrible, being kidnapped, raped, killed, exploited, and other horrific things some people are able to do. Not to talk about dating apps where teens lie about their age because nobody requires an ID to start such an account.

Now, I will explain to you why you shouldn't make a social media account-

1. It is dangerous and you are automatically exposed to dangers (even if your account is private)

2. There will be unknown people begging for nudes and harm you.

3. You will face toxic environments and useless drama

4. It is really addicting and you will spend time on something that doesn't help you at all

5. It can cause depression and anxiety to "fit in"

These are just some of the reasons, but they are way more in reality

How do we keep ourselves safe on the internet?

1. Don't talk to strangers- it is a basic rule that can keep you safe.

2. Don't put your location/city and country in your biography

3. Don't show your face in any of the pictures

4. Don't answer or text any of the people you don't know

5. (If you have Instagram) Set the "limit" in your settings, it is some sort of restricting. I have it on and it is helpful

6. Keep your account private but in case you need people to get in contact with you and need an audience, it is okay to have it public too.

7. If someone's strange follows you/ texts you/ sees your story/ likes your photos, block them

There may be more but these are the main ones. 

Now, social media and The Internet itself are dangerous no matter how safe you are trying to keep yourself. Just try to do your best to keep yourself safe! Don't believe in anybody who says knows you! Be as closed as possible!

This was the end of today's post! Sorry for posting this so late but I didn't have any electricity until now. I hope you liked this and maybe you will give it a follow here on Blogger! Here are some documentaries I watched that are pretty interesting about the subject-

 

 ----Social media dangers exposed by mom posing as 11-year-old- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbg4hNHsc_8

---The dangers of social media-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jMhMVEjEQg

---Social media dangers documentary-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=He3IJJhFy-I

---Bark website-

https://www.bark.us/

Have a nice day!

Peace :)

Keep in touch with Unknown-

https://twitter.com/JoaneUnknown

https://www.instagram.com/iamjoaneunknown/