Recently I presented a half hour session on 'why use social media', focusing on Facebook, to members of Brisbane Seniors Online (all are people over 50). I have included below my notes for the session. Interspersed are my thoughts, comments in Italics, as the session progressed .
What social media do you use? And why?
Who uses social media? Which ones do you belong to?Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, LinkedIn, Picasa, Flickr, Tumblr, WordPress, Blogger, Delicious, Google Reader
I was very impressed with the number of people who use social media. The bulk of participants indicated they were members of Facebook but Twitter and Google+ also rated.
Why have you signed up to these sites?
To keep in touch, share opinion, thoughts, join interest groups, meet like minded people.The most well known would be Facebook. Today I’ll focus on staying safe and reducing risk while enjoying the benefits of engaging with others on Facebook.
I didn't ask this question, I was feeling a little pressured to get on with the nuts and bolts.
Value of Social Media
What value have you found in joining Facebook?On joining Facebook I found I could look up people I know and connect with them. This was very valuable, especially when those people I knew lived interstate or overseas. I was very excited about this and spent quite some time searching for friends.
The other thing I valued was the ability to join groups or 'like' pages. At last count I have liked over 150 pages (it's very hard to keep up!). Groups have diminished in their use and in fact I have left most of the groups I joined.
I didn't really discuss this either, again felt need to get to nuts and bolts of presentation.
Risks & Security issues
Risks - Passwords
Recently LinkedIn was hacked and millions of passwords were stolen. This hit the social media circuit quickly. I immediately changed my password based on my knowledge of creating a strong password. I also found the following table (I’ve only reproduced 5 but there were 30 listed) of the most commonly used passwords:Ranking Password Phrase Number of Times
1 Link 941
2 1234 435
3 Work 294
4 God 214
5 Job 205
Source: http://www.bsacybersafety.com/protecting_yourself/safepassword_article.cfm
And the most popular password? is password
In preparing for this session it was fortuitous for me that LinkedIn was hacked, resulting in various sites publishing on worst passwords used.
How to create a secure password:
Words that are in the dictionary shouldn't be in your password, but unusual characters should be. For example, experts say a safe password should include at least one or more of the following:A lower case letter — a, b, c, d …Names on your Facebook page -- such as your dog's name or high school mascot -- shouldn't be in your password, either.
An upper case letter — A, B, C, D….
A number — 0, 1, 2, 3…
And a special character — @, #, $, &…
That of course makes remembering your password a challenge, but here's a trick that security professionals recommend:
Think of a sentence that you can remember, and take the first letter of every word in the sentence as your password. For example: My daughter Julie was born on November 1 would yield a password of "MdJwboN1."
Throw in an exclamation point at the end to show your love for your daughter, and you have a pretty strong, unique password.
Privacy - what level?
On Facebook privacy can be open to everyone so everything you do is accessible by anyone or closed so everything you do is accessible only to friends or even selected friends.
Most of the time you would want your friends to see your stuff but sometimes you might not want some of your friends to see something. There are a number of ways you can set up your privacy in Facebook.
One of the things I’ve done is to disable the option where people can search for me – I did this on purpose because I want to control who I want to friend. This has not been too much of a problem but every now and then I’ll find out that someone tried to friend me but couldn’t find me. This could also become tricky if someone I search for has done the same thing!
Who do you want to see your stuff?
Why would you want to show some of your stuff to some of your friends and not others?In my case, I may want my Tassie friends to see something but not my other friends (especially if it's something specific to Tasmania).
I've set up Lists and grouped my friends under:
Close friends; acquaintances; family; Qld friends; SA friends; Tassie friends; the other groupings are used for the pages I've liked.
When you have grouped your friends in this way you can then send notes to a group or a couple of groups depending on what your status update is.
Security - Privacy
On Facebook, the way you maintain your privacy can be as open as everything you do is accessible by anyone or as closed as everything you do is accessible by selected friends.Most of the time you would want your friends to see your stuff but sometimes you might not want some of your friends to see something. There are a number of ways you can set up your privacy in Facebook.
One of the things I’ve done is to disable the option where people can search for me – I did this on purpose because I want to control who I want to friend. This has not been too much of a problem but every now and then I’ll find out that someone tried to friend me but couldn’t find me. This could also become tricky of someone I search for has done the same thing!
Who do you want to see your stuff?
My parents came along to the session and while my Dad is a computer user my Mum is not. I think Dad found it interesting but Mum was soon bored and keen to be doing something else!
Links of interest:
http://wolfram.org/writing/howto/password.html How to pick a Safe Password
http://mashable.com/2011/11/17/worst-internet-passwords/ 25 Worst Passwords of 2011
No comments:
Post a Comment
Tell me what you think ...