Daniel Helmstadt
Professor Harrington
English 101
13 Feb 2015

It’s a social media frenzy! Should we shelter our children? Social media has become addictive. A majority of us a slave to it. We check our phones, IPads, tablets and computers constantly. What's going on with everyone and everything at every moment. Social media puts another whole world at our finger tips. Another world that you have little to no control over. As a parent you take a vow to solemnly provide and care for your child, in every way possible. You take on the task of teaching this being everything there is to know about this world that we live in; The goods, the bads, and all of the in-betweens, or at least we attempt to. You would never allow your child to waltz up to some random stranger on the road and say, "Hey there! My name is (enter your child's name here) and I live at (your full address) and this is an updated photo of me and what I look like. Also, if you look closely, in the background you can see my house and exactly what it looks like too! Here are some more photos of what I like to do and where you can find me in my spare time." So would you allow them to distribute that information to every single person that happens to click on the link to their social media page? Did you know that 73% of teens have established online profiles on social networking sites and 29% have been stalked or contacted by a stranger or someone they don’t know Giving your child access to social media provides them keys to another world. However in the world of social media, what ever you upload can never be erased. Yes, yes, you can quickly go back and "right click, delete" but the truth of the matter is that content uploaded to the internet lives on forever. Here's a fun fact! Did you know that the US Library of Congress has archived every "tweet" ever "tweeted" on twitter. Did you know that in the fine print, you are giving your authorization for them to distribute that information to other parties. (Pew Internet & American Life Project) Now, aside from providing an open diary of the ins and outs of their lives along with an invitation for any child molester and/or kid napper to stalk and harm your child, how about some other important risks that are involved with adolescents and social media. As noted in the survey by On Device Research, out of 6,000 16 - 34-year-olds across 6 countries and found that more than 10 percent reported that they had been turned down for a job because of picture and/or comments on their social media account. Kids post things online to try to catch the attention or to gain the approval of the friends/peers and no information is truly private in the online world. We have all (I hope) gone through our times of what some would call, "moments of sheer stupidity" but what if those moments were logged into a filing cabinet that anyone and everyone were able to witness. Many of times these are things that, although at the time may have sounded like a "great idea" can and most likely will "bite you in the ass later." That's just what your child is posting, what