Three Tips for Safety on Social Media

Social media has great benefits—and great dangers. Here are three simple tips that can help reduce those dangers so that you can enjoy the benefits!

The Internet—all of the information in the world sitting right at your fingertips! Everything that you could ever want to know is just a few letters and a click away. There is no detail too small to be overlooked. If you want to know it, you can find it. For example:

• How long is the world’s longest snake?

• When does the next Captain America movie hit theaters?

• What is the most popular book of the year 2015?

Again, you can find anything on the Internet!

The danger

But do we realize the dangers of the Internet? I’m not talking about pornography or some other form of decadence, although those are great dangers! I’m talking about the danger in how much we tell the world about ourselves.

Many of us tend to act first and think later. An alarming trend has appeared, however, where we act first, post second and think third. This often causes things to show up online that, when we think about it, we would rather not have people see or read. Even though many websites let you “delete,” such things are never really gone. They are either preserved by a web crawler, a screenshot or in people’s memories—or all three.

Reputations have been lost or compromised because of what was posted online—often by the very person whose reputation was destroyed. It’s not just our friends who look at what we post—so do employers, potential employers, parents, children, police officers, strangers, coworkers and the list goes on.

Sadly, the danger doesn’t just stop there. Sometimes, what we reveal online can allow predators or con-artists into our lives. There is so much information out there, we can become a victim almost without realizing it. We simply have to use some caution whenever we are on social media—to protect ourselves and our reputations.

Here are three tips that will help make us safer on social media.

1. Know who you are talking to.

“You have 1,500 friends.”

Really? Do you even know 100 people really well?

This isn’t to poke fun at those who do have 1,500+ friends or followers in social media, but to warn you. Chances are, you don’t really know all of those people. That means that someone who is a complete stranger can get onto your Facebook page and find your phone number, your address, your birthday, your family, where you hang out, shop, eat and what your other interests are.

This isn’t to say that with every friend request we receive, a game of 20 questions must follow. But we should display some caution and have at least a brief acquaintance with those who we are allowing into our social media universe.  

2. Be careful what you place online.

My university developed the slogan, “Whatever happens in Athens stays on …” followed by the icons of the most popular social media sites. Once we place something online, it’s there for the whole world to see. We have to realize that whatever is on our social media account is a reflection of who we are and determines our reputation.

Our reputation matters more than any temporary pleasure we get from posting something online. “A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches” (Proverbs 22:1). We have to be careful not to place anything online that will compromise or damage our reputations.

We also should not put anything online that we would consider private or confidential. The sad reality is that not everyone online is a friend with our best interests at heart, and such information can come back to haunt us.

3. Recognize that the virtual affects reality.

Some people seem to believe that whatever happens online has no effect on what happens in the real world. The truth is the exact opposite! People can lose jobs because of something posted online. People have been arrested or sued because of something they said or did online. Friendships can be ruined because of a thoughtless comment.

The world on your computer or phone screen is not a separate world from the one that you live in; the two are very connected and actions in one have grave consequences in the other. If we are aware of this, then we can change our behaviors online so that what we post helps ourselves and others instead of bringing us down or getting us into trouble.

Whenever we use social media, we have to be careful. The sad truth is that one mistake can cost us greatly. Use these three tips to avoid making that one mistake and stay safe on social media.

For further insights into wise use of social media, read “Before You Post on Social Media …,” “Social Media: Whose Approval Are We Seeking?” and “Don’t Be All About Your Selfies!”