“I’m the only kid in school without a device!” Those words are common around many households today. Tweens and teenagers are excited to get their hands on a smart phone so they can call, text, Instagram, Snapchat, Tweet to share their day’s activities with the social media world. To the young, this is harmless. To the wiser who see the big picture, this is a bit scarier. Apprehensiveness to give their children such freedom is well earned as adults have made-and learned-from mistakes. The difference is that the elder generation’s mistakes aren’t on social media…forever.

Thinking ahead perusing a college applicants social media profile is becoming more relevant. “He basically warned us that the admissions counselors will also look at our Facebooks and any social media that we have to try and get a better picture of what kind of person we really are,” Rachel said. “More crucially for those trying to get into college, 30 percent of the admissions officers said they had discovered information online that had negatively affected an applicant’s prospects.”

How do you start the conversation in a comforting way? Teacher Tube has a great video that describes how an innocent picture can be shared quickly and never taken off of social media. The character posts one picture on her “wall”. One student shares with another and this repeats throughout the entire video. It will end with the main character looking distraught without showing what happened to make her feel that way. Most importantly, it demonstrates how one picture can cause strife in a person’s life-even when it wasn’t intended to do that.