Digital Diaries

Cyberbullying in the Office: The Politics of Friending Your Workmates

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 11:28:53 -0500

When we hear the term “cyberbullying,” many of us immediately think of mean-spirited kids using social media to intimidate other children.

But bullying survives long into adulthood and has migrated to the workplace, according to the latest installment of AVGs Digital Diaries series: Digital Work Life.

Digital Work Life examines the intersection – or rather collision – of social media and office politics. We found that most offices have a long way to go when it comes to creating awareness and educating their employees or putting guidance or policies in place about what’s acceptable to share on personal and corporate profiles. To set the stage, the study of 4,000 adults from 10 countries across the globe, found that more than half of the respondents believe social media has eroded their privacy in the workplace.

Menacing numbers

Should we be Facebook friends with our colleagues? Should we post photos from drunken work parties? In fact 11 percent of worldwide respondents have experienced embarrassment from photos or videos from a work event that have been uploaded to social media.

And if it’s a work event, who has the authority to decide whether photos can appear on a corporate Facebook page?

What strikes me about our Digital Work Life findings is just how blurred the lines have become for most people and just how conflicting our workplaces can be. For example, 15 percent of US workers have been the victim of a social media insult from a colleague.

Nearly one in 10 of worldwide respondents has had a manager use information gleaned from social media against them or a colleague.

What’s more, nearly a third of worldwide respondents accepted colleagues’ social media requests even though they did not want to.

Boundary time for Employers

When it comes to social media at work, there are a number of different forces at play and employers of all sizes should educate employees about social media etiquette. It is important for employers to create clarity around the responsibilities and accountability of employees in the use of company resources and social media in the work place. A good place to start would be to offer clear codes, guidelines or policies about the use of social media in the office, the sharing of information between colleagues or about the company and clear examples about what is and is not acceptable.

And it’s not enough to just create a policy; employers need to make sure workers are aware of it and how it applies to them.

Employees should Think ahead

Young workers – especially recent graduates – should think carefully about transitioning their student personas, where pretty much anything goes, to professional personas, where one indulgent evening can get them in to trouble and possibly curtail their career.

Regardless of the rules in any one company, employees should create personal guidelines for social media engagement and stick to them over the course of their career and from company to company.

Either you’re friends with your colleagues or not. You can create special circles or walled gardens for colleagues and restrict what you share with them or you can share everything with them.

It’s much easier than people think to simply say that you do not want to become “Facebook” friends with colleagues and, at least in my experience, this reaction garners a great deal of respect. But keep in mind that anything you DO share online about anyone, no matter how seemingly disconnected, can find its way into the wrong hands.

In a sense, the discussion begs a variation to that well known adage: Don’t tell anything to Facebook that you wouldn’t tell every single person you know.

Want to find out more? Visit the AVG blogs here

Do you ever think that Facebook and Twitter have made your...

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 07:15:00 -0500

Do you ever think that Facebook and Twitter have made your business everyone else’s business at work? The chances are your colleagues feel the same way.

We’ve just released our seventh Digital Diaries study which showed that 53% of the workers we surveyed – and over 6/10 in English speaking countries – think that social media has eroded workplace privacy.

Digital Diaries 7

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 07:10:56 -0500

For Digital Diaries 7 we took a look at the effects the internet has in the workplace. Check out our the results of our study in the report below.

AVG DD7 Executive Report by avgfree

AVG DIGITAL DIARIES - A Look At How Technology Affects Us From Birth Onwards

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 07:10:11 -0500

Since November 2010, AVG has been running a regular series of ten-country studies called AVG Digital Diaries. Starting with infants aged 0-2, each stage has looked at how the Internet has affected the development of different age groups.

Check out the report below for a summary of the key results for each phase.

AVG Digital Diaries by avgfree

How prepared are you for your next job interview? CV in order? Suit pressed? Answers rehearsed? What...

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 11:01:29 -0400

How prepared are you for your next job interview? CV in order? Suit pressed? Answers rehearsed? What about your online profile, is that in order? You need to be prepared to ensure your prospective employers aren’t in for a nasty surprise when they search your name. We’ve made a video that shows you the worst possible scenario in all of its cringe inducing awfulness. Enjoy!

Are you friends with your boss on Facebook? Are you not worried about the insight they’ll gain...

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 11:01:25 -0400

Are you friends with your boss on Facebook? Are you not worried about the insight they’ll gain into your life? In this age of social media, the professional and the personal come into contact more and more frequently, and you have to make sure you’re ready. We’ve produced a guide to being Facebook friends with your boss - follow it, and your online profile will remain your own business.

How to be Facebook friends with the boss and keep your job

Our Digital Diaries series has, over the past two years,...

Tue, 23 Oct 2012 11:01:19 -0400

Our Digital Diaries series has, over the past two years, documented and analysed the effects this digital age has on our development and our relationships with the world. Now, we’d like to introduce Digital Baggage, the sixth instalment in the series. Digital Baggage deals with the 18-25 bracket; more specifically, the care (or lack of care) taken over maintaining a positive online profile. How many of you reading this are unsure as to whether a prospective employer would think twice about taking you on based on what they can find out about you online? We’ve created an infographic to showcase some of the standout statistics. Let us know what you think!

AVG Digital Diaries in the media

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 10:40:49 -0400

Since the fifth AVG Digital Diaries study was released, it has had extensive media coverage, being picked up by 60 media outlets and blogs - and counting. Some highlights are as follows:

To hear interviews with the panellists who were at the AVG Digital Diaries launch event, listen to the BBC Outriders Podcast (nine minutes in)

The NextWeb similarly did an extensive piece on the event itself

Isabel McFadden had the following to say about the report in her Technorati Women piece:

“Teenagers are savvy enough to understand privacy settings and notifications and can set those to limit parental involvement (and awareness), but the level of engagement doesn’t have to be invasive to be effective. In fact, most parents still have a positive view of their children’s online activities”

Over on Forbes.com, a blog piece by Haydn Shaughnessy concludes:

“AVG is recommending that parents realize that they need to teach children good online behaviour rather than spying on them. And the teaching should begin in infancy.”

At PC Mag, Neil J Rubenking comments:

“Modern kids have experiences and hurdles that their parents never faced. Parents can’t necessarily help, and schools aren’t effective at teaching teens how to use the Internet responsibly.”

Finally, All Facebook has featured both AVG’s tips on keeping teens safe, as well as the video AVG produced accompanying the campaign

A guide for parents, putting yourself in your kids' digital shoes

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 05:50:46 -0400

An AVG Digital Diaries guide for parents - putting yourself in your kids’ shoes

When so much of teen life happens online, it is important you have a realistic picture of what life is like in your teen’s digital shoes.

To help parents get a clearer sense of how your teens online behavior might (or might not) match up with your perceptions, Childhood Matters took some of the findings from the latest AVG Digital Diaries study and compared them to recent studies where teens were asked about their digital lives.

Parents, teens and online safety limits - a guide for parents

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 05:44:41 -0400

Parents and online safety limits for teens - a guide

One way to get clear on limits and rules is to install Internet safety software that helps you to keep an eye on the computers, smart phones, tablets, and game consoles in your home.

Internet safety software can help your family to clarify what is in bounds and what is out of bounds when it comes to screen time, places to go on the Internet, and digital social interactions.

Here are some tips on using Internet safety software effectively with your 14-17 year old, produced by Childhood Matters for AVG

Parenting dilemmas for the digital age - to snoop or not to snoop?

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 05:36:58 -0400

AVG Digital Diaries guide for parents - to snoop or not to snoop?

This guide produced by Childhood Matters for AVG looks at one of the parental dilemmas for the digital age - to snoop, or not to snoop? What is the best way for parents to monitor their teen’s social media activity.

Five stages of Digital Diaries research

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 12:40:27 -0400

Digital Diaries Quiz

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 11:05:00 -0400

AVG’s latest study finds surprising statistics about what your kids may be doing online. Take this simple quiz on AVG’s Facebook page to see how prepared you are for their digital adulthood.

Our Digital Coming of Age video

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 13:21:15 -0400

60% of US parents secretly access their kids’ Facebook...

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 06:01:00 -0400

60% of US parents secretly access their kids’ Facebook profiles (click to enlarge)

Nearly half of UK parents keep tabs on teens via Facebook

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 05:22:00 -0400

Is this a new kind of parental relationship, or is it spying?

AMSTERDAM - 17^th April, 2012 – Parents are keeping tabs on their teens by accessing their Facebook accounts without their consent, AVG Technologies’ latest Digital Diaries study reveals.

Digital Coming of Age, the fifth instalment of AVG’s Digital Diaries study, features responses to AVG’s questions to 4,400 parents with 14-17 year olds in 11 countries. It found that only 30 per cent of UK parents are likely to be concerned about how their teen’s interaction with social media sites could affect their future job prospects. This was the lowest figure (excluding the Czech Republic) of all the countries surveyed.

Tony Anscombe, AVG’s Senior Security Evangelist, said, “AVG’s latest research encourages us to consider whether Facebook and other social networking sites are creating a new kind of parental relationship, or whether we are in effect spying on our teens? These sites are providing parents with new methods to monitor what their kids are doing without necessarily having to be ‘heavy handed’ or to quiz their child directly.”

Digital Coming of Age also unearths that nearly two thirds (59 per cent) of UK parents believe schools were effective in teaching their teens to responsibly navigate the internet. This was the highest figure of all countries surveyed.

Will Gardner, CEO, ChildNet International, commented: ”We know from our work in schools that children and young people are using a wide range of devices to surf the net and we also hear from many parents who are confused about how their children are getting online and what they are doing online. One of our key messages is to encourage parents to talk with their children and young people about what they’re doing online, who they’re talking to and to find out whether they have any safety concerns. It’s great when families can connect online, but offline conversations are also a key part of staying safe online.”

Other key findings from Digital Coming of Age include:

· UK parents are most likely to suspect teens of ‘sexting’ -nearly one quarter (23 per cent ) of UK parents suspect their kids of sexting, compared with their European counterparts in Germany (9 per cent), France (10 per cent), Italy (11 per cent) and Czech Republic (13 per cent)

· 28 per cent % of UK parents suspect their teens are illegally downloading music - compared with Spain (45 per cent), Czech Republic (35 per cent ) France (30 per cent ), Australia and New Zealand (27 per cent ), United States (19 per cent ). UK teens could face up to ten years in jail for illegal downloads as a result of Britain signing the disputed Anti-Countering Trade Agreement (ACTA) bill

· One fifth of UK parents suspect their teens of accessing pornography on their PC - in comparison to over a quarter of Spanish parents

· One fifth of UK parents have seen explicit or abusive messages on their offspring’s social networks -compared with over one quarter of Australian and New Zealandparents

· Parents ‘friending’ teens on Facebook -over half of UK parents are connected with their teens on Facebook, compared with United States (72 per cent), Canada (66 per cent ), Italy (66 per cent ), Spain (64 per cent ), New Zealand (60 per cent), Australia (57 per cent ), Germany (51 per cent), Czech Republic (50 per cent), France (32 per cent) and Japan (10 per cent)

· Nearly half of UK parents are worried that their teen’s mobile phones are geo-tagged

· Only 30% of UK parents concerned about how their teen’s interaction with social media sites could affect their future job prospects, compared with Spain (65 per cent), Italy (57 per cent), Germany (47 per cent), France (45 per cent), Australia (42 per cent), Canada (38 per cent), New Zealand (37 per cent), Japan (33 per cent) and Czech Republic (29 per cent).

· UK parents most satisfied (59%) with how schools are teaching their teens to responsibly navigate the internet, compared with Spain (54 per cent), United States (49 per cent), Australia (53 per cent), New Zealand (47 per cent), Germany (44 per cent), France (43 per cent), Canada (43 per cent), Japan (42 per cent), Italy (35 per cent) and Czech Republic (31 per cent).

About AVG Digital Diaries

The first stage of AVG’s Digital Diaries campaign, Digital Birth, focused on children from birth to age two. The study, released in October 2010, found that on average, infants acquire a digital identity by the age of six months old. Nearly a quarter (23 per cent) of children have had their pre-birth scans uploaded to the Internet by their parent – establishing a digital footprint even before birth. The second stage, Digital Skills, was released in January 2011 and showed that for two to fiveyear olds, ‘tech’ skills are increasingly replacing ‘life’ skills. In fact, many toddlers could use a mouse and play a computer game, but could not ride a bike, swim or tie their shoelaces. Digital Playground, released in June 2011, found nearly half of six to nine year olds talk to friends online and use social networks. This was followed with Digital Maturity in November 2011, which revealed how 11 year olds had developed adult skills in technology.

Research for all stages of the Digital Diaries series was conducted by Research Now on behalf of AVG Technologies.

About AVG

www.avg.com

AVG’s mission is to simplify, optimize and secure the Internet experience, providing peace of mind to a connected world. AVG’s powerful yet easy-to-use software and online services put users in control of their Internet experience. By choosing AVG’s software and services, users become part of a trusted global community that benefits from inherent network effects, mutual protection and support. AVG has grown its user base to approximately 108 million active users as of December 31, 2011 and offers a product portfolio that targets the consumer and small business markets and includes Internet security, PC performance optimization, online backup, mobile security, identity protection and family safety software.

Keep in touch with AVG

· For breaking news, follow AVG on Twitter at www.twitter.com/officialAVGnews

· For small business security trends analysis, follow the AVG small business blog at http://small-business.blog.avg.com/

· Join our Facebook community at www.facebook.com/AVGfree

· Join our LinkedIn community

Digital Diaries Stage Five Full Report

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 05:14:00 -0400

ddreportfinal

A previous AVG Digital Diaries study showed that kids as young...

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 07:15:00 -0500

A previous AVG Digital Diaries study showed that kids as young as three years old are now acquiring so called tech skills, with more able to play a computer game than ride a bike.

As a result, you’d imagine that by the time they are 11 or 12-years-old they would know quite a lot about the Internet, perhaps even more than their parents.

Parents however think otherwise…

We’ve just issued a new Digital Diaries report where we looked at kids aged 10-13 years old. Among other things, we wanted to find out from parents - who do you think is the most knowledgeable about the Internet in your household. This is what they told us:

Less than one in 10 (8%) parents were willing to credit their child with knowing more about the Internet than they do.

This comes as results from the same study that today’s pre-teens are better informed about the online world than their parents perhaps imagine.

Are you smarter than a ten year old? Who knows the most about...

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 07:00:15 -0500

Are you smarter than a ten year old? Who knows the most about the internet in your household? You, your partner or maybe your kids? Well, according to the Digital Diaries study by AVG, over 90% of parents feel that they’re savvier than their children - but are they? We went to find out.

Digital Diaries: Is your pre-teen a ‘digital adult’? Today, we...

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 09:47:01 -0500

Digital Diaries: Is your pre-teen a ‘digital adult’?

Today, we released the next stage of our Digital Diaries research series, which highlights that the majority of pre-teens are now on mainstream, adult social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

This time around we surveyed 4000 parents with children aged 10-13. Those parents admitted that 58% of their kids had access to a ‘mainstream’ social network

So what are they doing to monitor their children’s behavior on there?

• 60% are looking at their PCs.

• Two-thirds of parents claim to know their kids’ passwords.

• 6/10 access their children’s computers while they are not on them.

However, this still leaves 40% of parents who are not checking their kids’ behavior at all and how effective is monitoring activity on a PC anyway. Our fourth Digital Diaries study also shows that kids are increasingly able to circumvent parental supervision.