This blog writing is my assignment to course called Leading multicultural Networks. I am third year student in HUMAK University of Applied Sciences, my Degree Progamme is called Civic activities and youth work.

Because of my study area, I want to connect the content of this blog to social media and networking among youngsters.

Social media and controlling privacy

Nowadays the media and especially Internet has a huge role in young people lives. We have been raised to use the Internet in our everyday life. The newest phenomena are in my opinion different social media services, which have suddenly become super popular. All most every one of us has a facebook, twitter or IRC-galleria page etc. 

The social media gives us great opportunities to connect people and to create networks. I for myself use facebook as a tool to keep contact with my exchange friends around the world. It is easy; I can share my life, videos, photos and all important details of my life with people I care about.

The question I am still thinking while using the social media services is the privacy policy. How open I want to be? How much is safe to share in the social media? Is it good idea to have an open account? Should I control my privacy and how can I do it?

These are important question, and if they are hard for me they must be also a hard ones to children and youngsters. Eventhough they taught media criticism in schools today, it is still really easy to find for example almost naked photos of teenager girls.

Do the children and youngsters really understand the importance of the privacy? I think maybe not. The fact is that there are many dangers related to use of social media and having a totally open account for example in facebook.

The parents mostly dont have a clue what the children really do in the internet, what pages they use, what kind of pictures they have and how much time they really use chatting etc. in the forums.

What can be done? I think teaching the media criticism is good start, but how to get the young people comprehend the dangers and the fact that once you put something to the internet, it probably stays there for a looong time.