Be safe

How safe is your face?

Today is ‘Safer Internet Day;’’ organised by InSafe to raise awareness of safe and responsible use of the Internet. We’ve picked some of Insafe’s top tips to share with you.

To find out more about each topic simply click on the relevant quote.

Think before you click:

“The minute you pass a digital image of yourself on, be that via text message on a mobile phone or posted on a social networking site, you have lost control of it forever. It can be circulated, copied and spread at an alarming rate, and there is no way of ever regaining control. The longevity of images remaining in cyberspace is another key issue. Potentially, once an image has left your possession, it will exist in cyberspace forever. Images can come back to haunt you maybe 10, 20 or 30 years from now.”

Shut the gate on Farmville:

“Gaming does […] trigger a release of adrenaline, and this small level of hormone increase may well cause a small, short-term behavioural change. It is therefore important that gamers have offline time too, giving themselves time to ‘wind down’ from a gaming session before bedtime. Their regular sleep patterns may be disturbed. There are concerns that online gaming may have addictive tendencies, with players being distracted from regular every-day activities to attend to the crops on their virtual farm. Additionally, gaming is a somewhat static activity. Gamers should therefore take regular breaks, move around, and make sure they eat and drink regularly, and balance their gaming activities with physical activities in the real world.”

Be a bashful blogger:

“You should always be careful about how much personal information you share on a blog. […] Some personal information may sound harmless, however snippets of information such as the name of your town, your [uni] name, hobbies and interests, or postings about where you like to ‘hang out,’ can all be pieced together to form a very detailed picture of the blogger and their possible offline movements. Some blogs are also ‘location aware;’ this means it records the location of where you wrote the blog. Bloggers need to be mindful, too, that images can reveal personal information that might not be immediately obvious – consider, for example, a [uni] logo on a sweater or a local landmark in the background.”

Finally, know your networks:

InSafe have provided a range of downloadable tip sheets, one for each social platform. They initially offer advice on how to use the platforms, but also cover protecting your privacy online and the process to report abusive comments or users.

Click the link to find out more:

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