Internet Safety Lesson

My sister spends a lot of time on the internet. She's an old freshmen in high school. First off, I wanted to know what she knew about being safe on the internet. I asked her the questions below and the discussion and discourse took place as follows:


What do you know about sexual predators?


My sister told me about a movie she watched in fifth or sixth grade about how a boy was chatting online with who he thought was a girl his own age; it turned out to be an older man. They arranged a meeting at which the man planned to kidnap the boy, but the boy luckily escaped. She said that it taught her that boys and girls are susceptible and "everyone's a target, and that predators are sly and patient." 


I learned in this discussion that sexual predators can be after others of their same gender - creepy. 


I told my sister about how sexual predators will try and call their victims on the phone after breaking their guard down with sexually explicit conversation and images. They will also send them gifts to win their affection and trust. Sexual predators work very hard to get the victim to withdraw from their family. My sister was unaware of these facts. 


What do you know about cyber bullying?


I was thankful that my sister knew it existed. She understood that the motivation behind it was usually self esteem issues. 


I asked her what she knew about the four types of cyber bullies found at www.stopcyberbullying.org.  We discussed each of the types (vengeful angel, revenge of the nerds, mean girls, and inadvertent bullies) and ran through examples: ""You're fat and ugly?" OR "I think you're funny?" (Number 1 being bullying). "You're screwup in English today was epic! How embarrassing!" OR "I would kill myself if I did stupid things like that." (Number 2 being the correct one). 


I also asked her what to do if she is ever cyber bullied and she answered:
1. Tell them to knock it off!
2. Tell an adult. 
I also told her that sometimes the authorities need to be involved. 




What do you know about internet safety? Do you know how to protect yourself on the internet?


My sister scared me a little on this one. When I asked her this question, she responded: "keep info private, like time limits, and stranger rules" to which she didn't elaborate. I instructed her about not using the same username for everything, staying off the computer late at night, only having a computer in a public place, and to Google yourself often. I Googled her earlier and it worried me; you can see her Google+ conversations on line regardless of having a Google account. I told her that and her attitude was one of, "Oh well. It's going away anyway."


The experience was good. We found no extra resources together. We both learned from it and I hope my sister will be cautious about her internet gallavantings.