Archive for July, 2010
Facebook Integrates Cyberbulling Panic Button
Facebook and the UK Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) have joined to provide a “panic button” Facebook app.
Facebook plans to announce the availability of this app on the home page of teen Facebook accounts. Once the app is installed, the user will have a tab under their main profile called “ClickCEOP”. When you click on the ClickCEOP tab, you can choose to either go to the CEOP website or to the Facebook Safety page for information on how to protect yourself online and where to report online abuse.
House passes bill to block porn on government computers
It wasn’t too long ago that the news was filled with reports about how employees of the SEC were watching porn at work while our stock market sank. By a vote of 239 to 182, the House approved H.R. 4899 that states in SEC. 4601:
“(a) None of the funds made available in this Act may be used to maintain or establish a computer network unless such network blocks the viewing, downloading, and exchanging of pornography.”
This means that all government computers must have safeguards in place to not allow the employee the ability to surf pornographic websites on government property while at work.This bill is now awaiting approval in the Senate.
Making sure that employees are focusing on the task at hand versus spending their work days on inappropriate sites is being responsible to the consumer, shareholders, and, in this case, taxpayers. And, it creates an opportunity for the business owner to provide help to those with a pornography addiction.
TV and Video Games or Relationships and Memories?
The Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics released a report where 1,323 middle childhood participants were studied over a 13-month period to see the difference between children who limited their TV and Video Game time to 2 hour or less per day versus those who did not limit their time.
The results concluded that those who did not limit their time had increased attention problems. As a parent, it’s easy to want to let our children veg in front of the TV or play video games. Heck, it’s easy to get them to do, occupies their time and we can get a lot of “me time” and other things done. However, we all know that the easy thing isn’t always the right thing!
Instead of doing the easy thing, get involved in your children’s lives. Set in place time limits for media. Use parent control software to help enforce time limits online. Replace that time with activities where you can grow as a family. One day when your children and grown and out of the house, you’ll look back and be thankful that you did the right thing and built those memories and strong relationships with your children versus remembering them vegging in front of a TV or video game hours on end.