On Youth and Teens Today with Vanessa Van Petten

For all of you technopeasants and non-techies alike, here is Part II of the coolest free websites on the web.  As I mostly have busy parent readers, I know that they love to know about cool sites, but just do not have time to find them.

My last post got over 100,000 views! So be sure to check that out, add your own in the comments, submit more to me for Part III and forward this along to anyone who needs some very awesome–and geeky, but not complicated sites!

1. MindMeister

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Ok, I feel extremely cool to post this video.  I have been experimenting with a bunch of different demo products so I can show my readers my desktop and how to do things.  This is my first one!

I am going to be holding a few teleclasses coming up because my last one was so successful walking through a few video demos and taking questions.

This is a video I made on how to set privacy settings on social networks, enjoy!

If you have anything you would like me to show you, add your requests in the comments

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Recently the Los Angeles Times posted about how Identity Theft for kids is a big problem. I wanted to post some tips and services for you.

1. Teach Them About Social Security Numbers

First of all, they should know what their social security number is and the importance of keeping it private–not carrying it in a wallet or anything.

2. Talk to Them About Phishing

You know those crazy emails you get from a Somalian mother who wants to wire you $1,000,000? A lot of kids do not have any idea these are total scams.  Tell your kids to immediately report these emails as spam and do not download or click on anything in the email…if they can, they should not even open it!

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I keep a very close eye on youth trends to make sure I keep my parent readers informed and prepared for trends. I wanted to discuss a recent report I came across about young people online by Global Youth Survey: Social Media from Next Great Thing.

Here are some of the key findings that I think are relevant for you:

*Most popular Sites for Teens:
1) Facebook
2) Hyves
3) MSN
4) Friendster
5) Cyworld

*Youth choose their social networks primarily based on what their friends are using.

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Dear Vanessa

Sometimes you mention monitoring your kids online and on the computer. I am thinking about installing a parental control software on my computer, but there are thousands of choices. Do you have any recommendations?

-Laurie, Los Angeles, CA

I actually get this question a lot, especially when I speak and often get emails from my readers recommending or bashing products they have used. There are literally thousands of different softwares you can buy to monitor your kids and prevent them from visiting certain sites.

Here are my favorites with some short reviews:

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