Digital addiction.

I always hear about how parents believe their kids or teens are addicted to the Internet and especially their cell phones.

The word addiction is usually related to substance abuse, however within today’s tech world, we are hearing more and more about “Internet addiction.”

Internet addiction can include a wide variety of behaviors or problems as it relates to technology. While some people become addicted to playing computer games, others are addicted to cyber-relationships or online gambling or shopping.

Like other addiction problems, Internet addictions can vary in intensity. But no addiction is considered healthy.

Here are three signs and symptoms you may be heading for Internet addiction:

All your spare time is spent online – Anger sets in when Internet time is interrupted. This leaves little time for anything else. Real offline life is ignored.

Your Social Outlet is Social Media – The Internet becomes an emotional outlet. When there are feelings of happiness, sadness, fear, grief, excitement, etc., the Internet is used as the outlet—the place to share or release those feelings.

Becoming withdrawn – Because so much time is spent online, there is little time left to share with friends, family, and others. Isolation sets in.

Constant connection: Teens are too attached to technology

How many teenagers go to bed with their cell phones? Parents, this is a habit that needs to be broken before it leads to addiction.

Owning a cell phone, especially with a data plan and texting, is a privilege. With privileges come boundaries. Parents, it is up to you to enforce your rules—no cell phones at bedtime.

Setting realistic restrictions

Determine the daily allotted time you want your kids to have online and stick with it. But when a project is due for school that requires Internet research, it is obvious they will need prolonged time online.

Like all things in life, there should be checks and balances in setting screen-time limits for your child.

I once heard of a parent that had her kids earn each hour they spent online for pleasure by doing chores. Of course there was a cap on it, but that is a great way to have your kids earn their time online.

At the end of the day nothing is more important than your family

Let’s be fair, social media is part of today’s world and we can’t run from it—on the contrary, we have to embrace it and teach our children to respect it.

While your kids need online time to create and maintain their positive digital profile, they also need face-to-face time with you. This is why it is so important to set rules and limitations on Internet usage.

When determining online-time restrictions for your children to circumvent Internet addiction, set aside some family time each week away from computers, tablets, and cell phones!

Do you believe Internet addiction could potentially become an issue in your family?

How many minutes/hours a day should a child be online for pleasure and how can your child earn their screen time?

Many parents have a variety of opinions depending on their child’s age and maturity.

Please share your opinions and thoughts for others to gain from your insights and experiences.

I often talk about parents and their part in leading by example, both online and off. Children are very impressionable and will often mimic their parents’ habits—good and bad. Since online behavior has real world effects, parents must focus on demonstrating respectful digital citizenship to their children.

Parents used to just puzzle over their teens’ calculus homework; now parents have the added challenge of deciphering their teens’ new digital dialect. Parents need to familiarize themselves with social media so they are able to create a positive online example for their kids.

Here are three areas to focus on when it comes to positively influencing your t(w)eens.

1. Educate yourself: knowledge is power!

Stay informed and keep up-to-date: regularly follow articles on parenting and social media. Ask your friends what their kids are doing online. It’s beneficial to acquire different perspectives and a fuller understanding of how social media functions in your child’s world.

More knowledge builds confidence, helping you be less apprehensive when communicating with “expert” teens about social media. As a result, kids sense that their parent is a legitimate figure to look up to and model their online actions by.

2. More things in common means more things to chat about.

Communication is key to all parent-child relationships and social media commonalities can help.

Parents are gaining a wider presence on the Internet. Two-thirds of adults use social networks according to a Pew Internet study last year; 82% of parents under forty and 61% of those who are older are present on social media.

The data speaks for itself: more and more parents are integrating social networking into their lives. This commonality between parents and their children adds a dynamic to the relationship as well as a new topic of conversation.

Parents, create a dialogue about your online experience with your teens, whether it’s a cool feature you discovered on Facebook, or an interesting account you follow on Twitter.

3. Monitor your child’s social media, and remember they are watching you too.

Parents have the ability to influence their teens’ conduct by keeping tabs on their activity, but it’s a balancing act between your child perceiving you as supporting, versus untrusting.

Stay active on your social accounts so your child doesn’t view your surveillance as overbearing, but rather as a natural extension of your own activity. Kids will tend to see this more as a healthy interest in being a part of their lives both on and offline.

Perhaps the most crucial takeaway is to realize that raising an upstanding digital citizen doesn’t take a different set of principles than teaching honorable conduct offline.

You can be a social media role model at any age! Kids mentor kids, siblings mentor siblings, and most of all, teachers mentor students. Parents must lead by example—both online and off.

“Tweet Others As You Want to Be Tweeted” via MySecuritySign.com

As a social media role model what is your number one concern about your child’s digital footprint and their cyber-life? If your child posted a questionable comment or photo, how do you handle social media concerns in your family? Please share with us.

What you share is as important as how you share it.

Over sharing is an area that both kids and adults can be guilty of. It is important to understand what is appropriate and what crosses the line, digitally speaking.

A good challenge that is often heard is the Grandma Rule: “If it is something you wouldn’t say in front of your grandmother, chances are good you shouldn’t be sharing it online.” The same goes for a debatable photo.

Setting a good example

We are our children’s role models—both online and off, but what happens when the child watches the parent have a complete cyber-breakdown? What happens when a parent doesn’t live by the advice they would probably give their own child when it comes to online conduct?

Parents monitor their kids online, however kids snoop on their parents. It is only common curiosity; inquiring minds want to know—and parents should be aware.

Monkey see, monkey do

If you are cyber-gossiping chances are good your child will pick up your habits.

Years ago the cliché used to be, “in your child’s ears and out of their mouth.” Today the big concern is, “in their ears and on to the world-wide-web for everyone to know.”

Yes, the way we share news has changed dramatically and it is time we learn to respect ourselves and others digitally.

Building a blog together is a good place to start

Creating a blog together with your child is a great way to teach them how to make a digital space for themselves while building a positive online profile. You can maintain the page and help them decide what is appropriate for the world to see.

Blogs are colorful, expressive, creative, and most of all they tell the reader all about you!

So what will you blog about?

• Hobbies and interests: Do they have a favorite app or game? Do they love dance or sports? They can tell the readers about their favorite teams.
• Movie and book reviews: Have they seen any good movies? Read any good books? Post a picture of the book cover or a trailer of the movie.
• Visit a local restaurant? Anything they would recommend from the menu?
• Vacations, travels: talk about places they have visited.
• Summer Camps: Did they attend a summer camp or participate in a teen travel event? Share those experiences. Would they recommend them and why?
• Won any awards? Share them—be proud.

Keep it positive—be sure to use correct grammar and spelling and never use profanity.

Don’t waste a minute! Start your blog today!

What will you blog about? Do you have a blog? Share it with us!

Building a positive online reputation (digital footprint) should be a requirement of owning a computer.

Every keystroke counts. It is as simple as that. There will come a time when just about everything we do in life is recorded and we won’t have to go any further than our screen (whether it is a tablet, phone or computer) to find something we need. Actually, I think we can do that now.

When it comes to your digital resume—which can also be known as your profile, image, or reputation in the virtual world—it stands to reason you want it to reflect your attributes and things you are proud of in your life.

Teens learning discretion at an earlier age

Since teens don’t have a long history behind them in cyberspace, they have the great opportunity to start their online legacy from scratch.

If only many would recognize this before they start posting some of those spring break pictures.

Some good news, the latest PEW Internet Study, found that 57% of teens in this study say they have decided not to post something online because they were concerned it would reflect badly on them in the future.

What exactly is a ‘digital footprint’?

One of the best definitions I have found that everyone can understand is:

“A digital footprint, much like your fingerprint, is the unique activity trail you leave online. Everyone has one. Your digital footprint includes “hard” information that the Internet gathers about you through your email, your online registrations, your video and photo uploads and your combined activity on social networks. A digital footprint also includes “soft” information such as the impression you leave through your overall words, photos, and interactions with others.”
- Toni Birdsong of McAfee

This digital footprint is what creates your online profile and is most likely what employers and college recruiters will be viewing as they type your name into search engines.

Blogs are a great way to build a positive reputation

Blogs are free, they are fun, and they easy to maintain. You will have many choices of templates, fonts, colors and layouts as well as upload pictures and videos to make it your own. Best of all, you control them and what you want them to say about you.

WordPress and Blogspot are the two most popular free blog sites and are very user friendly and search engine friendly. In setting up your blog select a URL that incorporate your name (or your child’s name). For example my full name is in my free WordPress Blog www.suescheff.wordpress.com.

We should all treat the Internet as if there were no such thing as privacy. Any email, tweet, picture, social media post, or text has the distinct possibility of being made public.

Let’s be sure the World-Wide-Web is your friend.

Since your keystrokes determine your digital footprint, where has cyberspace taken you recently? Share with us some of your favorite social media sites and how they work for you!

Yes, within seconds your life can go viral. A simple click of a mouse or tap of a keypad and your digital world is soaring through cyberspace.

The Internet is one of the greatest educational tools yet at the same time we can also say it is not always accurate.

Internet fact verses Internet fiction—Yes, your posts really affect your future!

The old cliché, “you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression,” especially holds true when it comes to online reputation.

From teens to young adults to parents to business owners, everyone should be aware of their digital profile. Maintaining your online reputation needs to be a priority and parents need to help their t(w)eens to understand the impact their Internet activity has on their futures, and teach that what goes up today can haunt them tomorrow.

Poor judgment can lead to major consequences!

According to a 2011 Kaplan study, 80% of college admissions are using search engines and a students’ social media presence to screen their applicants which can mean their college application has now extended into their online presence. This is where the parent concern comes in—what has your teen been doing online that you don’t know about?

According to Career Builders 77% of recruiters are using search engines to review potential job applicants.

I personally think these percentages are probably higher today, however no one should risk losing a job or a first choice college over an immature post or photo online.

Education and awareness are the keys to online safety

We are our child’s advocates, both online and off. Part of online safety is your teen’s digital footprint—it starts the minute you give them their first keypad.

What can we do to help maintain our online reputation?

Here are three tips to start:

1. Make it a habit to do frequent searches on your child’s name or you can set up alerts in Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Twilert in your child’s name.
2. Own your URL, set up accounts on major social media and business networking websites (this is for adults—such as LinkedIn). Parents, as a gift to your kids for the holidays, consider buying them their name as a URL. It is cost-effective and a great way to start building their online profile. Building a website is easy and fun.
3. Instill in your child to always think before posting or sending. Post with respect.

Have you thought about your online image? Are you smiling or frowning?

If you could create your digital profile from scratch, what would be your priority?

What would people see first? Please share with us!