Laboratory Exercise | Discussion Questions

Exercise 1.

Critical dialogue: Discuss and reflect on the “characteristic ways of thinking” as conceptualized by Elkind—adolescent egocentrism, imaginary audience, personal fable, and the illusion of invulnerability.  Access a social media platform to review a sampling of adolescent profiles.  Relate the aforementioned concepts to behaviors observed in the social media content and provide specific examples for each.  Challenge yourself to consider the motivation behind the post or content (i.e. what purpose might it serve for the individual), and identify in what ways, if any, that the content contributes to cybersecurity vulnerability.

A. Change your profile’s security and privacy settings.

• • If it is Facebook or LinkedIn, you may need to adjust your privacy settings so that the information is not public. If the privacy settings do not allow you to hide your information, you may need to delete the account.

B. Evaluating Your/Friends Electronic Profile

• Run a browser
• Navigate to a search engine of your choice (Google, Bing, Yahoo, Ask, etc.)
• Perform a search for your full name
• In the search results, follow a link that you feel will display a webpage containing information about you. If the link’s destination does not contain information about you, navigate back to the search results and follow another link.
• If you wish to try removing the information, locate a link that allows you to contact the site owner(s) or automatically request removal of the information.
• Evaluate several of your friends’ electronic profiles by following the steps above.

Discussion Questions

1. What steps can you take to mitigate the chance of becoming the victim of a hack?
2. Can you adjust the connection settings to restrict who can see stories, send friend requests and messages, or search for you by name or contact information.?
3. Can you hide certain posts or block people from posting on your page?
4. Can you report posts if they violate the website’s terms?
5. What are other potential threats to someone accessing your account?