With all the different ways you can use the internet from buying clothes, doing your banking, storing your photos and even finding love it’s no wonder there are so many ways it can have negative effects on your real life.
Below are some resources and information on how you can protect yourself online:
Think Before You Post!
Limit personal contact information in your profile and posts. Don’t publically post any private information and never give away your phone number or address. This type of information is private and should only be shared with people you know!
Be Cautious of Friend Requests
It’s important to be wary of random friend requests. It’s easy to portray yourself as someone different on the web so the person you’re accepting may not be the person in their pictures. Some requests could turn out to be spambots and some of these can be harmful to your accounts and your friends – sending spam and phishing attempts.
It’s better to just accept requests from people you know!
Passwords are private
Don’t share your password, you shouldn’t even share it with friends. Whilst you might be best friends now, things could turn sour and you don’t want someone to impersonate you on social media or hack into your iCloud and share your personal information. Choosing passwords that contain a mixture of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and special characters can make breaking into your account much harder.
Check Your Privacy Settings
With most social media sites, the default privacy settings is public. Having a range of “unknown” followers and strangers viewing your profile can be very dangerous.
Don’t measure your own life based on what others post
People rarely post a horrible photo, with the growth of Photoshop and filters is easy to create a perfect picture. Don’t assume that others have better lives than you do, based on what they post.
Here are some more links with tips on how to stay safe online: