#12 - Online Safety: Not Just For Kids!
Let's face it; we could all use a refresher on how to protect ourselves and our loved ones online.
Kids are now introduced to smart devices and the internet at a very young age. The Pew Research Center found in a 2020 report that 67% of children under age 12 use a tablet and 60% use a smartphone1. In the same study, Pew also found that nearly 20% of parents with a child under age 12 say their child has their own smartphone. Parents, caregivers, and educators must grapple with this reality as these powerful tools are heavily integrated into education, entertainment, and even basic communication for our youngsters.
As I was updating my Mozilla Firefox web browser – yes, that’s right, I use Firefox, don’t @ me – I came across a promo for The Tech Talk, an infographic and blog series encouraging parents to connect with their kids about online safety practices. This article is what prompted me to reflect on this issue in the first place.
Although there can be upsides to children using smart devices, kids are also at risk of being exposed to harmful or inappropriate content or succumbing to the tricks of bad actors online.
Parents ideally ought to coach their children on how to use tech responsibly and take an active role and interest in their online activities. Kids (and all technology users) must be taught to build a strong line of defense and approach the internet with a strong level of scrutiny at all times. Ronald Reagan made the phrase “Trust, but verify” famous, but in the cyber realm, it is critical to instead “Verify, then trust.”
Thus, the Tech Talk series is Mozilla’s attempt to lighten what can be a weighty conversation for families on internet safety. The authors really dialed up the level of “cringe” Gen Z lingo in an attempt to relate with today’s youth. Readers are greeted with a news ticker-style feed of breaking news such as “Update: Recent graduate lists ‘completed TikTok challenges’ on resume.” I also endured a blasphemous diss on sloppy joes and consented to allowing dad jokes through a cleverly disguised pop-up that at first glance appears to be a common pop-up privacy policy.
Maybe I’m giving the authors too much credit here by assuming the cringe is intentional.
Throughout the infographic, Firefox highlights six main topics for child safety online, but we adults could certainly benefit from an internet safety refresher as well. Although politicians may try to legislate their way out of the child safety issue and tech companies can develop tools for parents to mitigate risk, we are ultimately our own last lines of defense against the bad actors of the internet. Personal accountability is a key part of the solution here.
Let’s take a look at Firefox’s six categories, and I hope you use this opportunity to evaluate your own digital safety habits.
1. Data Privacy
It may not be intuitive for children—and adults if we’re being honest—that many of the most popular online services, games, and tools depend on the collection of data from users. Some of this data is used to improve the user experience of an app or service, while other services collect a surprising amount of personal information that doesn’t immediately seem to be necessary for a given task. For instance, it might set off some red flags if your basic four-function calculator app is requesting access to your address book and photo gallery.
Of course, Mozilla advertises its Firefox Browser as the solution to privacy with its ad tracker-blocking feature, but the company also suggests turning off location data for apps and using the “Ask app not to track” option on the iPhone.
I urge you to take it a step further and periodically double check all permission settings for all apps, not just location data. You may want to reconsider or rescind permissions on your child’s apps for access to the camera, microphone, contacts, phone calls, and more, especially if it doesn’t make sense for certain apps to have those permissions in the first place.
2. Consider Your Mental Health
Mozilla then confronts the hot parenting topic of screen time and the unintended negative health effects of excess device use and endless scrolling. There’s no shortage of researchers and commentators sounding the alarm about the mental health impacts digital technologies have on kids and adolescents —including psychologist Jean Twenge’s must-read book on the subject iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy--and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood--and What That Means for the Rest of Us.
Turning back to the Pew study, 80% of parents with a child under age 12 watch videos on YouTube, with 53% of parents saying their child watches YouTube daily and 35% reporting their child watches several times per day2.
To help mitigate some of these “doomscrolling” spirals, The Tech Talk advises parents to set “charging breaks” or firm device curfews to limit how much digital content kids can consume in one sitting. Disabling push notifications can also help users focus on other tasks and help adults resist the urge to start a new scrolling session in the first place.
3. Prevent Cyberbullying
This one is about as straightforward as it gets: People are often just plain mean to each other on social media sites, comments sections, reviews, and the like. Mozilla urges parents to proactively confront this issue head-on by teaching their kids how user content posted online can be misused and encouraging a “positive comments only” rule.
Even with a solid game plan in place urging kids to avoid hurtful comments and practice mindful internet posting, many teens joining social platforms will unfortunately confront cyberbullying in some form. Parents should keep a watchful eye for any signs of cyberbullying, and as adults, we can all do a better job of setting a positive example online by not fueling the negative discourse ourselves.
4. The Risks of Public Wi-Fi
Many of the most popular apps and mobile games depend on a stable internet connection. When outside the home, young children (or their parents) may risk connecting their devices to open, unprotected “public” Wi-Fi networks out of convenience. Unfortunately, it is all too easy for bad actors to abuse these public access points to spy on your web activity or even outright steal sensitive data such as personally identifiable information (PII), login credentials, and attachments.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission warns that although you cannot necessarily make a public Wi-Fi network more secure, users can take proactive steps to protect themselves and mitigate risk. The FTC advises consumers to encrypt their web traffic using a VPN, never access personal or financial information over public Wi-Fi, and fully sign out of all accounts when finished browsing.
Mozilla again uses this as an opportunity to plug its VPN product, but an even simpler solution for the masses is to simply turn off automatic Wi-Fi connections and switch to cellular data—which is typically encrypted—for internet access away from home, especially when inputting PII or accessing sensitive data. Or, even better, if you are using an app or service that does not require the internet, switch the device to Airplane Mode.
Also, please help me out in the comments: Are we still writing out “Wi-Fi” with the dash or have we switched over to WiFi?
5. Use Strong Passwords
We’ve all heard the spiel about strong passwords before. Google’s Help Center advises that strong passwords help prevent unauthorized access to your accounts, but first-time internet users need some coaching. Strong passwords are over 12 alphanumeric characters in length and do not include common personal information, such as a birthday or street name, that could easily be guessed from scouring your public profiles.
Cybersecurity experts particularly caution against reusing the same password across multiple accounts. If a malicious actor steals your recycled username and password from one account or service, all accounts could potentially be compromised through a process called credential stuffing. One solution is to use a password manager that generates strong, unique passwords for each account and offers secure password storage.
While it can be tempting to fall back on an old standby password for everything, adhering to strict password hygiene and drilling these practices into our kids can prevent the headache of a ransomware attack, identity theft, or other form of online fraud.
6. Private Browsing
Mozilla points out the parental conundrum regarding kids’ use of private or incognito web browsing. Without access to their child’s browsing history, parents are unable to review a comprehensive list of websites and content visited. Browsers like Firefox and operating systems like Windows do offer parental controls that give some ability to restrict access to mature content online, but even Firefox acknowledges that such tools '“can be easily disabled by a knowledgeable user.”
In a separate blog post, Mozilla notes that it is not effective to simply set parental controls and walk away. Instead, it is imperative for families to establish strong, two-way communication between parents and kids to explain why certain content is restricted and find a balance between protecting kids online, gradually teaching them to make the right decisions for themselves, and staying involved in helping kids navigate difficult situations.
While not an easy task, successfully establishing this healthy rapport within the family may make children less tempted to rely on incognito browsing in the first place.
“Parenting Kids in the Age of Screens.” Pew Research Center. Published 28 July 2020. Accessed 7 December 2022. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2020/07/28/parenting-children-in-the-age-of-screens/
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