A Guide to Twitter for Parents: It’s Twitterific!

Thursday, 12/10/2009

What’s all the Twitter about? Undoubtedly you’ve heard of the up-and-coming social networking site, Twitter.com. But, chances are, you’re not on it yet.

We’ve put together an in-depth guide to explain what Twitter is, how you can use it, and what you need to know to help monitor your kids’ Twitter activity.

What: Twitter is a social network, like Facebook, LinkedIn or Myspace, where users can share their thoughts with other users in short, 140 character updates.

Why? Twitter helps us answer the simple question “what are you doing?” We often ask this question of the friends, family and people who matter to us most. But it’s unlikely that we’ll tell every single friend that we’re out for a cup of coffee or are having a really great day.

Enter Twitter. Between phone calls, emails, and face-to-face communication, Twitter gives you the opportunity to tell those around what you are doing.

It also gives you the opportunity to listen to what others are doing. Popular among celebrities and businesses, Twitter gives you an inside look into what other people, completely unrelated are doing too.

How: When you sign up to Twitter (video tutorial below), other users, friends and family can “follow” you and your updates will appear on their homepages. You can also choose to “follow” others. Sometimes this will be a reciprocal action – you follow a friend, and she follows you. But you can also follow news outlets like The New York Times, celebrities like Selena Gomez, or organizations like the American Library Association.

The Parent Factor

You may be interested in Twitter because of your child’s use. Common Sense Media, the fantastic organization dedicated to improving media and entertainment for children , reminds us that:

• “The biggest Twitter users are adults. Most kids will continue to talk to their friends through instant messaging and texting.
• If your kids are Twittering, they only have 140 characters to say something—and they have to say it to someone who has already asked to “follow” them (this isn’t as creepy as it sounds!)
• Anyone can Twitter—there’s no age restriction—- and those who do have to set up a personal profile, which can be public or private.”

So, when talking to children about Twitter use, and use of all social networking remind them of these important safety tips:

• “Never share names, schools, ages, phone numbers, or addresses
• Never send pictures to strangers
• Keep passwords private (except to parents)
• Talk about privacy. Show kids where privacy settings are on Twitter (hint: on your homepage, click “Settings” and then click “protect my tweets”) and make sure they use them.
• When they post something online, they lose control of it. It can be cut and pasted and sent around the Web.” [via CommonSenseMedia.org]

To learn more or get started on Twitter yourself, watch the video below from HowCast.com

For even more information, check out Mashable’s Twitter 101 Guide with everything from video tutorials to a Twitter dictionary.

Posted by » walden
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