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If you are the parent of a child or teen who uses the internet, here are some stats you need to know:

Stats About Teens and the Internet

• Teens think that the internet is mostly private
• They also think that they can make the best decisions for their life online
• They believe they are safe online and that people are who they say they are
• They don’t feel at risk if “friending” perfect strangers
• They feel like since they are probably better at understanding technology, they can make better decisions than t

YouTube uses a recommendation algorithm to help people view things they’d like to see. Recently, the algorithm seemingly encouraged pedophiles (YouTube would have no way of knowing this) to watch videos of children playing at home, videos that the family members uploaded.

A report from the New York Times detailed how YouTube had been exploiting minor children through the automated recommendation system. According to the report, researchers at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at H

An alarming new study is out, and if you are a parent, you should take note…children as young as 8-years old are being sexually exploited via social media. This is a definite downturn from past research, and it seems like one thing is to blame: live streaming.

YouTube serves up videos of kids, in clothing, that pedophiles consume and share as if it is child porn. It’s gotten so bad that YouTube has had to disable the comments sections of videos with kids in them.

Apps like TikTok are very popular

You might not think about this, but identity thieves really want your child’s Social Security number. If they get this number, they can do a lot, including buying a car, renting an apartment, opening a credit card account, or getting a mortgage. The Social Security numbers of children are great for the bad guys for several reasons:

• Generally, children have a clean record
• Crooks can use these numbers to obtain credit
• Kids usually don’t check out their credit reports until they go to college or buy a

Who’d ever think those silly little yellow circular faces and other such cyber symbols would become such a worldwide smash? I’m talking about emoticons, also known as emojis. Five years ago Apple put an emoji keyboard on its mobile devices. Six billion of these doggone things are sent every day.

But a story at kdvr.com says this isn’t as innocent as it seems.

The story mentions Sheila Allison and her 12-year-old who regularly communicate via emojis. For instance, Allison’s job means she’s not home

How many times have you read, or at least caught a headline, of the latest high profile missing child case? How many stories have we heard about the kid who got lost on a hike? His body was found several miles from where he’d been last seen, concluding a several-day search.

What if he had had an iPhone on his person at the time he wandered off in the middle of some vast woods? Sure he could call, but then what? Android and iPhones have a “find my phone” feature that a parent can track down a lost

As a parent, you may not be crazy about your child spending a lot of time “gaming.” Chances are good that your feelings are fueled by the fact that kids should play outside, be more social, and are getting addicted to tech or maybe the correlation between childhood obesity and excess computer time. It’s not pretty.

However, there’s another elephant in the room, perhaps squeezing out the obesity threat: the pedophile threat.

Recently on a Long Island college campus, a male student was found to be t

Here’s one for the know-it-alls: Kids are 35 percent more likely to become victims of identity theft than are adults. Betcha didn’t know that! This startling news comes from a 2015 Javelin Strategy & Release study.

Needless to say, the bulk of parents aren’t on top of this problem, unaware that thieves go after children’s SSNs like two-year-olds grabbing at candy. Thieves know that kids (and their parents) don’t monitor their credit reports. Thieves know that they can get away with their crime al

Identity thieves are after children’s Social Security numbers. With this number, a thief can do so many things like open a credit card account and rent an apartment. Kids’ SSNs have great appeal to crooks because:

• A child’s record is usually very clean.
• This means fertile opportunities for new credit lines.
• Kids usually don’t check their credit reports and thus the fraud can go undetected for years.

Parents should consider putting a freeze on their kids’ credit. Simply getting the credit monitored w

You’ve seen TV commercials and print ads about identity theft, and the “victim” is always an adult. That’s not realistic. The actor-portrayal should be that of a child. Yes, a kid.

Children are 51 times more likely than adults to have their identity stolen, says research from Carnegie Mellon University’s CyLab.

Crooks want kids’ Social Security numbers. And crooks like the fact that kids are debt-free. Wow, with no debt to the child’s name, the thief could easily open up a line of credit in that v