Seven Deadly Clicks: Essential Lessons for Online Safety and Success

By Margo Strupeck

Pulling examples from high-profile pop culture cases, Seven Deadly Clicks explains the very real dangers behind common online activities. The book covers everything from over-sharing to sexting, online addiction, and more. Teens and parents will not only learn how to identify and prevent falling into these digital traps, but also how to recover if they do happen to make a mistake. This ebook exclusive acts as an internet safety net, giving teens an entertaining, yet informative, resource tohelp navigate potential pitfalls and still live fulfilling lives online.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lerner Publishing
• Release date: Aug 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781541582026

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SEVEN DEADLY CLICKS

As the lines between real-world relationships and virtual avatars continue to blur, the threats that teens face online are on the rise. There’s a burning need to stay connected, comment, like, gift, tweet, and share every aspect of their lives. Parents and teachers may stress the consequences of risky online activity, but teens are in danger of being desensitized by the continuously connected world they are growing up in.

The digital world has evolved into something that may be just as important to a teen’s life as football practice or getting into a good college. It’s how the youth of today communicate, build relationships, and keep in touch. I remember when being asked to prom via instant messaging was taboo (true story, happened to me). Now there are infinite ways to communicate, ask someone out, or even (more ominously) sext or bully.

The information superhighway has a dark side, and now more than ever before, teens really have to come to grips with life online. While staying connected is a necessary part of our modern existence, it brings with it serious temptations and serious repercussions—if we choose poorly.

Inspired by the seven deadly sins, this book is broken down into deadly clicks—seven mistakes people make that can get them in big trouble. Each chapter includes real-world examples that present true stories of teens who have gotten in too deep. These examples are followed by tips and tricks that hopefully you can reference later if your gut ever tells you that there’s something wrong.

Call me your online guide. I’ve been engulfed in this digital world ever since the days of waiting for an AOL CD to arrive in the mail, the days when you had to sign in through the phone line, the days when the internet was really only used for email and surfing the web (now the very basis of our online existence).

I work in the high-tech advertising industry in San Francisco, a fast-paced career that involves embracing the newest, coolest form of social media, determining which social network needs to be put out to pasture, and recognizing which company is violating their customers’ privacy. I’ve bought, sold, and managed all types of social media campaigns, giving me the background (and frankly, the backbone) to tackle this massive project. It’s my experience in this industry that makes me confident that I can offer the information and advice that parents and teens need in order to live safe, happy, and productive lives online.

My hope is that the following stories and tips will make you, the teens and parents in this online age, more aware of the dangers that you face, and thus less likely to succumb to the seven deadly clicks.

The deadly click: revealing too much about yourself

Over-sharing can happen in many ways: through texting, posting on your social network of choice, divulging too much information on your blog, sending a photo that is too revealing—the opportunities are endless. It’s easy to over-share without even thinking twice.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

Over-sharing is one of the easiest deadly clicks to commit, simply because in a heated argument, fit of passion, or excitement, it’s hard to remember to slow down and think about the consequences of what you post.

When you have that impulse to post, it’s more important than ever to take a minute and make sure you really want to push send. Now that social networks, texting, and all things digital have become the preferred methods of communication, it means that everything—and I mean everything—is recorded.

Over-sharing can be a knee-jerk reaction, and it can feel really good. Posting hilarious comments on your Facebook page may get you thirty-four likes, but it can also affect your reputation. No one wants to hear about your bowel movements. We know it’s exciting that you just got into the college of your dreams, but telling your school and teachers to kiss off isn’t the best bet for your future. When a friend steals your significant other, posting nasty stuff about him or her online will simply tarnish your reputation probably more than it will damage theirs.

In the old days, if you needed to vent, you called up a friend and complained about your coach, teacher, boyfriend, parent, or ex and then basically erased the conversation by simply hanging up. Even if you and your friend might remember what had transpired, when you hung up, you got rid of the evidence.

Now that even grandparents are joining Facebook—and probably posting too much information about their social security benefits and way too many photos of their grandchildren—the potential eyeballs that can view your online conversations are growing by the second, spanning professions (from teachers, to doctors, to police), generations, and circles of trust.

Who’s the main offender? While anyone can post too much, unfortunately, the younger generation is more than likely the main culprit. A combination of desensitization, a lack of attention to privacy settings, and the speed at which we can now share everything make it too easy to over-post, over-tweet, and just plain over-share.

Another group of potential over-sharing culprits is mothers—yes, mothers. You know that embarrassing photo of you in the bathtub as a child? Imagine if your mom had Facebook back when you were a kid. As cute as I’m sure your baby pictures are, there’s no need to share your bodily functions, what you ate that day or especially, photos of you naked.

Even if you’re simply communicating via text, the ease with which one can take a screen shot of that conversation and post it online or simply forward it to a new recipient can be just too tempting. All in all, it’s become too easy to share everything, making your once-private comments available to the nearest roaming eye—or millions of eyes, in the case of