Betty teaches you the importance of keeping your OFFLINE identity separate from your ONLINE identity

Betty

Betty
Cyber Defender & Clubhouse Supervisor

Betty learned the hard way about sharing too much information online when rumors she had spread through her online blog upset some of her friends. Since then she has made it her goal to educate everyone about what information is inappropriate or unsafe to share online to prevent others from getting hurt.

As a Cyber Defender, Betty focuses on the most important information you should never share online, your offline identity.

Favorite Quote:

A stumble may prevent a fall
- English Proverb

Favorite Food:

Tea and crumpets

Interests:

Chatting, macrame, collecting teacups

February 20 2009

Jax

I have to say I'm very impressed with Miss Jax. I've been working with her on the cyber bullying forum site project and she is performing well above my expectations. She is a keen and eager worker and is very dedicated to her new cause. She would make a dynamite Cyber Defender if she ever chose that path.

We're currently working on the site structure. Jax is being especially careful to make sure everything is taken into account. She really wants this site to be a safe and friendly place so we're putting extra care into its planning. I might enlist the help of Erika in designing how the site will look. I have an inkling that she and Jax would make a great team.

posted by Betty
topics: Miscellaneous

February 17 2009

Safe Online Communication: Internet Addiction

The excitement of the Internet is difficult to ignore, and I'm sure many of you have occasionally spent more time than is healthy exploring it, especially when it's new. But eventually that excitement wears off, you stop spending as much time exploring, and your life goes back to normal. Not for Internet addicts, their lives never return to normal.

Internet addiction is when you become so obsessed with being in Cyberspace that it interferes with your normal life. Internet addicts choose to make the Internet the most important thing in their lives, more important than family, offline friends, and school. Their unhealthy behavior causes stress for the people around them and can ruin relationships.

Internet addicts start to spend all of their time in Cyberspace, ignoring everyone around them and even lying about how much time they spend online. They start to see the Internet as something they need, perhaps because it's the only place they feel like themselves, or because their online friends seem to understand them better. They can even become unable to control their behavior and treat anyone who tries to help them like an enemy. This inability to control their actions can make them feel powerless and hopeless.

For some addictions, the best way to help the addict is to completely remove what they are addicted to. But with Internet addiction, it’s not the technology that is the problem but rather the behavior of the addict. Internet addicts cannot completely avoid the Internet, so they must learn to limit the amount of time they spend online and learn other ways of dealing with the problems in their life that led to their addiction. Just like someone recovering from an eating disorder, recovering Internet addicts must replace their old, unhealthy behaviors with new, healthy ones like spending time offline with friends and family.

posted by Betty
topics: Safe Online Communication

February 3 2008

Netiquette: Emphasizing in text

When you communicate face to face, there's a lot more than just words going back and forth. There are facial expressions, body language, gestures, and even the way you say things, all of which combine to get your message across. Since you can't see people face to face in Cyberspace, you're not getting the whole picture unless you adapt how you communicate.

As you spend more time chatting online, you'll probably develop your own personal way of phrasing things, your own way of putting your voice into your chatting. If you've read my post Netiquette: Internet Chat Slang, you already know that emoticons and acronyms can help you communicate better with people in Cyberspace. And if you've read my post Netiquette: Pay Attention to Format or played the Netiquette Quiz, then you know that typing in ALL CAPS IS CONSIDERED SHOUTING AND IS VERY RUDE.

There are other ways of emphasizing your words when you type, like making them bold, italicized, or by putting them between special characters like *asterisks* or _underscores_.

You can also use colloquialisms, expressions like "dude" and "whatever" that you probably use all the time when you talk to people. These things can help you type like you talk so that less gets lost in translation. Just see how adding emphasis, colloquilisms, and emoticons can completely change the feeling behind these words:

WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? Are you really that silly??

Dude, what were you thinking? Are you *really* that silly?? ;)

posted by Betty
topics: Netiquette