Hacking is a constant online danger, and parents and kids alike must be aware of its effects. A TechCrunch article highlights a particular hacking tool - Firesheep - created by Eric Butler. Butler developed this application to show how easy it is to access other people's information in….read more

Although Jennifer Mee received press in 2007 for her unbelievable case of the hiccups, she is now famous for another reason - an alleged role in the murder of 22-year-old Shannon Griffin. Many sources are saying this was a robbery gone wrong, as the suspect's original intent was only to rob Griffin. The other scary part of the….read more

FarmVille, one of the many Facebook applications, is a game with 59 million users. There are other fun, entertaining Facebook apps too, such as FrontierVille and Texas Hold 'Em, and all of these games can be played between users. However, people access these apps using their unique user IDs, and recent ….read more

A recent study found that 92% of American children under the age of 2 have an online presence. This is because parents are putting more and more materials online about their kids including photos, information about upcoming school or athletic events, and even Facebook profiles for babies that haven't been….read more

Social networking sites such as Facebook can provide many benefits to children and adults alike. However, we also hear horror stories about how the Internet can be harmful and dangerous to kids. Here are some important statistics worth noting about Internet activity: Sharing Private Information: 69% of teens have included their physical location on social networking sites. 51% of teens have given personal….read more

The media outlets have been paying a lot of attention to cyberbullying these days - and that is a good thing. It gets better though. Inspired by Fort Worth City Councilman Joel Burns' recent testimony, many ordinary people are taking to the social web to raise awareness of cyberbullying against gay, lesbian,….read more

Bing, Microsoft's answer to Google, recently partnered with Facebook to make online search more social. As Bing stated in a blog post, this new feature enables users to include "your Facebook friends into your search experience." The Bing post describes the frequency with which we ask our friends for advice on things that we would probably also look….read more

One of our recent posts on the SocialShield blog discussed the risks that Facebook Groups poses to parental control on Facebook.  We argued that if kids can establish their own groups - and exclude parents and other adults from them - well, then there is real danger of kids establishing their….read more

Liz Goodwin recently posted this blog entry on how mental illness may be dangerously absent from the bullying debate that is taking place in this country after the tragic suicide at Rutgers last month.  Goodwin cites Ann Haas, the research director at the American Foundation for Suicide….read more

We are excited to be able to interview Asst. Professor Jesse Schell on the SocialShield blog.  He is the Assistant Professor of Entertainment Technology at the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University. If you have not done so already, check out Jesse Schell's video on YouTube on the future of gaming.  It's….read more