Social Media

Are you Social Media Ready?

Social media is a great way to keep in touch with your friends offline – this is known as ‘social networking’. There are many different types of social networking apps and websites that will let you talk and share with your friends, some you’ll probably be already aware of.

This includes:

• Snapchat –  This is a mobile app and service for sharing photos, videos, and messages with other people. Once you view a message received via Snapchat, it is automatically deleted.
• Facebook – This is a popular and free social networking website that allows registered users to create profiles, upload photos and video, send messages and keep in touch with friends, family
• Instagram – This is a free photo sharing application that allows users to take photos, apply a filter, and share it on the service or a variety of other social networking services, including Facebook and Twitter
• Twitter – Twitter is a free social networking site that allows registered users to broadcast short posts called ‘tweets’

To be able to register to any of these social media apps/websites, the user needs to be 13 years old. If you are under 13 you should not be using them. This will be breaking their rules and could potentially put yourself at risk.

There are lots of reasons why these sites can be unsafe for young people, even those over 13, so it’s important that you don’t use them until you know how to do so safely.

Remember – there’s no rush to start social networking and there are plenty of other ways to stay in touch with your friends, chat and game until you’re ready to use them safely.

If you’re already using social networks, make sure you know what the risks are and what you can do to be safer.