CYBER SORTER:Our social media agony aunt answers your questions
Dear Cybersorter,
My eight-year-old wants his own email account. He and his five-year-old brother are now active on peer sites like Binweevils.com and Panfu, for which they have accounts monitored by me or their mum.
But the push for an email account is a push for freedom. So I’m wondering what the common view is?
Some parents seem to be very laissez-faire. I think Im probably draconian, but happily so.
NMG
Dear NMG,
It is understandable that your eight-year-old is frustrated at not being able to move his bin weevil or kung fu panda into the sixth dimension without first having to ask mum or dad to send an email.
The online world is not conducive to the theory of delayed gratification and nor are children, but in this case I think your instinct is sensible.
Sign them up and I predict your next email:
“Dear Cybersorter, My son has just asked me what Viagra does and why it is so expensive. He went on to confess he had given my credit card details to several exiled African princes who offered to post some money to him.”
The wonderful thing about safe online games and chatrooms for kids is that they are carefully policed, both by the platform and the parents.
The solution is simple and relatively cheap. ZooBuh.com is an email account for kids that parents can monitor, set times of use or approve certain email addresses to go straight through.
At €9.31 per year it is considerably cheaper than Viagra and the teenage years in therapy.
Dear Cybersorter,
A colleague, with whom I’m connected on LinkedIn, keeps asking me to be Facebook friends. I like to keep my private and personal life separate. How do I get this person off my back?
AN
Dear AN,
You have three options:
1) Obfuscate and lie. Tell your colleague: “Someone actually robbed my Facebook identity! I am in counselling for it at the moment and find any mention of Facebook deeply distressing. It causes my eye to tick . . . can you see my eye ticking? You’ll have to excuse me, I need to ring Dr Vabsokov.”
2) Block your over-enthusiastic colleague on Facebook. This means they will not be able to find you in a search so they can’t send awkward and irritating friendship requests. Then tell them you have deactivated your account.
This precludes you using Facebook in the office (if your colleague were to walk by while you were using it you would need to seriously ham it up, “I’m cured! It’s a miracle! I must call and thank Dr Vabsokov. Now if only I could figure out how to confirm friends . . .”).
If it really is only for private friends then not using it in the office would be a conscientious personal and professional boundary to set.
3) Make a friends list on Facebook for your work colleagues and make sure this person is on it. Only post banal nothings to this list.
Got a query for Amanda? Contact cybersorter@irishtimes.com or Twitter @cybersorter