Best Social Media Safety Tips for Students

Last Updated on 2 weeks by Touhid

Social media are interactive websites and applications that has designed to allow people to creation and sharing of information, ideas, efficiently, and in real-time. In this article, we will focus on some important social media safety tips for students.

The most popular social media platforms are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others. The people are getting facilities by using social media platform because it is one of the best ways to stay informed.

In addition, students have a profile on a social networking site and they visit these sites every day from morning to night.

Social Media Safety Tips for Students

Today, social media can cause both positive and negative feelings and effects on students’ lives and on society. There are many reasons why social media can be a dangerous playground and impacts on your life. So it’s important to take care and talk with your students about how to use social media safely. Here are the some important social media safety tips for students.

1. Use Strong Password

The first social media safety tips for students is use strong password instead of using easy password. You should use very strong password to protect your social media account and never use an easy password of your account.

May be you are using a very simple password to remember in your memory like as date of birth, mobile no, student_id, and 123456, which is one of the reasons for cyber-attack.

So, create a strong password for your social media account and change them on a regular basis (i.e., Between 30 and 180 days).

• The password length should at least 10 characters long.
• The password must have uppercase letters (A – Z), lowercase letters (a – z), numbers (0 – 9), and special character (@, #, $, %, ^, (,), &, *!).
• Example for strong password: $Mo&89neY%; is a strong password and standard password

Finally, create and use strong password is one of the best social media security tips for students and others account also.

Learn More about How to create a strong password?

2. Use Different Password for Different Account

It is strongly recommended that use strong and unique password for multiple account. If you use same password for multiple accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and if a hacker gets access to your one password then all other accounts will be vulnerable. So, it is better to use unique password for multiple accounts.

For example:

• Facebook account –> Use unique and different password
• Twitter account –> Use unique and different password
• LinkedIn account –> Use unique and different password

3. Protect Your Password by Yourself

Nowadays, to keeping your password safe is a basic requirement. To protect your password from unauthorized access in social media account you should do the following:

• To create a strong and unique password
• Change the password regularly
• Don’t share it other’s even your best friends and
• Place the password in a secret place

4. Don’t Save your Password on Browser

It is very bad practice that save a password on web browser in social media account. We don’t want to re-enter the password next time login  because we want to save our times.

But if your computer or mobile device is ever lost or stolen then he/she will get complete access to your social media accounts.  Even, storing your passwords will make your accounts is vulnerable to your roommates, family members, and visitors also.

5. Install Antivirus Software

Antivirus software is a program that helps to protect your computer against viruses, worms, Trojan horses, and other unwanted threats. It is a very important social media safety tips for students because its scans every file which comes through the internet or USB devices to your computer and helps to protect damage to your system.

You can use one of the following anti-virus software on your computer and keep updated with latest version.

• Norton
• Kaspersky
• Panda
• ESET
• Avast
• AVG

6. Up to Date Your Web Browser

Keeping your web browser up to date is another social media safety tips for both security and ensuring that web pages load properly. We know that, out of date web browsers can have serious cyber security problems such as phishing, viruses, Trojans, spyware, adware, and other sorts of malware.

In addition, you should know that, many popular websites, such as Gmail and Facebook no longer support old version of web browsers.

7. Be Confirm then Accept Friend Requests

When people want to friends with you in social media sites, then at first visit their profile page and if you don’t know them, so don’t accept their request. It could be a fake account to harass you.

8. Be Careful about Share a New Post

When you want to share a new post in Facebook or others social media account, first think yourself that the post has any negative impact to others? or how your post will be helpful to others? So, please submit an informative post, which will help your social media friends.

9. Keep Your Information in Private

To keep your information in private is another important social media safety tips for high school students. Don’t give out your personal information such as phone number, email address and personal contact information in your social media profile and posts. So, keep your information private for safety purpose. Moreover, if you want to share your information with a friend, do it directly by phone or messaging.

10. Do not Click on Suspicious Link

When you will see a link in the social media post, which seems to be suspicious then don’t click on it. If you click on that link, then there has a chance to redirect you a vulnerable website to hack your sensitive information by attacker.

11. Basic knowledge About Malware

Malware is a software program or code which is intended to extensive damage to data and systems or to gain unauthorized access to your computer system.

You have to gather knowledge about malware because it is delivered in the form of a link or file over email account. In the social media website, there has a lot of links and if you have no idea about malware then you will click on that link and will be victim by attacker.

Learn more about Malware and Prevention Tips.

Finally, students should have very careful on social media websites. We have discussed “social media safety tips for students” to protect them in social media. Hope the article will be helpful for students!