Catch-up post, trying again

[aome]

Deaths by cop. Deaths of cops. Shootings in Munich, murderous driving in Nice, knifings in Japan. It sometimes feels like the flags are going to remain at half mast forever. What is wrong with people today

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[aome]

We actually only JUST allowed her to get Instagram and Snapchat this week. Will being so very anti-social-media, but even HE caved a couple of weeks ago and got a FB account so he could follow other people. I'd been lobbying him to allow MiniPlu to get Instagram/Snapchat with the provision she not post selfies, for some time, but it wasn't until he got his FB account that he finally bent. And he's even allowing the selfies, as long as they're locked. He knows - and even MiniPlu knows - that nothing is ever really "safe" on the Internet, but I think she will be responsible.

(She's been absolutely OBSESSED with the funny filters that come with ... whichever one that is. I certainly have no idea, lol.)

But, anyway - yeah, hopefully she can keep in touch better with people this way. Are your kids allowed social media at all? (Two is desperate to be allowed the same privilege, but he's not anywhere near as careful - he might not be deliberately flaunting rules, but he just doesn't always think. Also, he has not done a great job impressing us with general responsibility lately, as per today's post. :P) Oh, but he IS ecstatic to get his braces off soon!

[hamsterwoman]

L doesn't have Snapchat -- I think she thinks it's stupid, so hasn't asked us if she can get it -- and FB seems to be passe for this generation. I've actually asked her several times if she didn't want a FB, because her school debate thing has a FB page with announcements, but she hasn't gotten one.

She's had an Instagram since 8th grade, though, and it's helped her keep in touch with some middle school friends, although mostly they use group chat on iChat (or whatever the Apple chat is called) to talk to each other electronically. Her account is locked, so she can post selfies, and has been pretty responsible.

O, on the other hand XD He has a habit of setting up stuff on his own and not even telling us about it until it comes up in passing later, or as part of a conversation like, "So I have this account on X, and I could get [some kind of in-game doohickey] if I answer this survey, but I need to give them my telephone number". So he has quite a few social media accounts (probably more than I know about), but mostly for game stuff and YouTube and so on. We've had several conversations about things like not putting any part of his real name in his username, not telling people how old he is or any other information, not linking his silly game accounts to RL accounts like his school district email, etc. etc. -- but he keeps figuring out new things to do that we would have forbidden him if they'd OCCURRED to us as possibilities. There was the time he was playing around on my mother's Android smartphone, and to access his... Clash of Clans or whatever, he ended up linking his Google ID with hers, so for several weeks after that she kept getting his emails in her mailbox. He hadn't intended to do that, but the combination of O trying stuff without thinking about possible consequences and Google being too smart for anyone's good... :P

So, yeah... I don't know what we're going to do with O and social media. Even if I wanted to monitor his access at home 100%, which frankly I don't have time for, internet is so ubiquitous, we wouldn't be able to block it elsewhere. And he's got accounts on things I know nothing about, like Steam.