{"id":172145,"date":"2024-08-12T05:23:30","date_gmt":"2024-08-12T12:23:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/?p=172145"},"modified":"2024-11-19T07:20:32","modified_gmt":"2024-11-19T15:20:32","slug":"10-back-to-school-tech-tips-for-kids-teens-and-college-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mcafee.com\/blogs\/family-safety\/10-back-to-school-tech-tips-for-kids-teens-and-college-students\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Back-to-School Tech Tips for Kids, Teens and College Students"},"content":{"rendered":"

Farewell, summer. Hello, back-to-school season! While the chill may not be in the air yet, parents may be feeling the slight shiver of unease as their kids, tweens, teens, and young adults return to school and become re-entangled with the technology they use for their education and budding social lives.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Before they hop on the bus or zoom off to college, alert your children to the following 10 online <\/span>cybersecurity best practices<\/span><\/a> to ensure a safe school year online.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

1. Keep Track of Mobile Devices<\/span><\/b><\/h3>\n

It sounds obvious but impart the importance to your kids of keeping their eyes on their devices at all times. Lost cellphones and laptops are not only expensive to replace but you lose control of the valuable <\/span>personally identifiable information<\/span><\/a> (PII) they contain. Protect all devices with unique, hard-to-guess passwords. Even better, enable biometric passwords, such as fingerprint or face ID. These are the hardest passwords to crack and can keep the information inside lost or stolen devices safe.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

2. Don\u2019t Share Passwords<\/span><\/b><\/h3>\n

Streaming services host the most buzzworthy shows. All their friends may be raving about the latest episodes of a zombie thriller or sci-fi visual masterpiece, but alas: Your family doesn\u2019t have a subscription to the streaming service. Cash-conscious college students especially may attempt to save money on streaming by sharing passwords to various platforms. Alert your children to the dangers of doing so. Sharing a password with a trusted best friend might not seem like a cyberthreat, but if they share it with a friend who then shares it with someone else who may not be so trustworthy, you just handed the keys to a criminal to walk right in and help themselves to your PII stored on the streaming service\u2019s dashboard.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Once the cybercriminal has your streaming service password, they may then attempt to use it to break into other sensitive online accounts. Criminals bank on people reusing the same passwords across various accounts. So, make sure that your children always keep their passwords to themselves and have unique passwords for every account. If they\u2019re having a difficult time remembering dozens of passwords, sign them up for a password manager that can store passwords securely.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

3. Keep Some Details a Mystery on Social Media<\/span><\/b><\/h3>\n

Walk down any city or suburban street, and you\u2019re likely to see at least one Gen Zer filming themselves doing the latest dance trend or taking carefully posed pictures with their friends to share on social media. According to one survey, 76% of Gen Zers use Instagram and 71% are on social media for three hours or more every day.<\/span>1<\/sup><\/span> And while they\u2019re on social media, your children are likely posting details about their day. Some details \u2013 like what they ate for breakfast \u2013 are innocent. But when kids start posting pictures or details about where they go to school, where they practice sports, and geotagging their home addresses, this opens them up to identity fraud or stalking.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Encourage your children to keep some personal details to themselves, especially their full names, full birthdates, addresses, and where they go to school. For their social media handles, suggest they go by a nickname and omit their birth year. Also, it\u2019s best practice to keep social media accounts set to private. If they have aspirations to become the internet\u2019s next biggest influencer or video star, they can create a public account that\u2019s sparse on personal details.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

4. Say No to Cyberbullying<\/span><\/b><\/h3>\n

Cyberbullying is a major concern for school-age children and their parents. According to McAfee\u2019s \u201c<\/span>Life Behind the Screens of Parents, Tweens, and Teens<\/span><\/a>,\u201d 57% of parents worry about cyberbullying and 47% of children are similarly uneasy about it. Globally, children as young as 10 years old have experienced cyberbullying.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Remind your children that they should report any online interaction that makes them uncomfortable to an adult, whether that\u2019s a teacher, a guidance counselor, or a family member. Breaks from social media platforms are healthy, so consider having the whole family join in on a family-wide social media vacation. Instead of everyone scrolling on their phones on a weeknight, replace that time with a game night instead.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

5. Learning and Failing Is Always Better Than Cheating<\/span><\/b><\/h3>\n

ChatGPT<\/span><\/a> is all the rage, and procrastinators are rejoicing. Now, instead of spending hours writing essays, students can ask artificial intelligence to compose them for them. ChatGPT is just the latest tool corner-cutters are adding to their toolbelt. Now that most kids, tweens, and teens have cell phones in their pockets, that means they also basically have cheating devices under their desks.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To deter cheating, parents should consider lessening the pressure upon their kids to receive a good grade at any cost. School is all about learning, and the more a student cheats, the less they learn. Lessons often build off previous units, so if a student cheats on one test, future learning is built upon a shaky foundation of previous knowledge. Also, students should be careful about using AI as a background research tool, as it isn\u2019t always accurate.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

6. Phishing<\/span><\/b><\/h3>\n

Phishing<\/span><\/a> happens to just about everyone with an email address, social media account, or mobile phone. Cybercriminals impersonate businesses, authority figures, or people in dire straits to gain financially from unsuspecting targets. In contrast, an adult who carefully reads their online correspondences can often pick out a phisher from a legitimate sender, tweens and teens who rush through messages and don\u2019t notice the tell-tale signs could fall for a phisher and give up their valuable PII. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Pass these rules on to your students to help them avoid falling for phishing scams:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n