Online terms parents should know

There's an ever growing trend among teenagers using social media networks called l33tspeak, netspeak or just plain internet slang. Surely you must have came across at least some of them...lol, brb, 143 and many more.

If you have kids this could be an area of concern. I'm sure all smart parents have set up filters on their kids' PCs to block certain words and/or sites but this is not enough any longer. Today's kids are lazy when it comes to writing and use single letter words to communicate with each other in ways that most adults wouldn't understand: U replaces you, R replaces are, o replaces oh, m replaces am, etc.

And your filters won’t pick up any of it.

Social network monitoring service SocialShield a few days ago released a list of the “Top Terms Parents Need to Know.” The list was curated from an analysis of commonly flagged terms identified by SocialShield’s monitoring engines as somehow risky, dangerous or illicit.

SocialShield has split them up into six categories:

• Warnings of parents in the room
• Requests to meet up in person
• Sexual
• Cyberbullying
• Depression
• Drugs/drinking

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While the Internet is an enormous resource and one of the major technological achievements of our lifetime, it is also used by adults who are seeking to exploit children. Protecting children from Internet predators and scam artists is a very serious responsibility which we all have.

I also found a useful site which translates slang and acronyms as well as giving plenty of info and resources, check it out here.

Remember; keep your children from getting into trouble online.