Social Networking sites – Did you know?

• 50 million Americans use Facebook.
• More than 5 million online US households experienced some type of abuse on Facebook in 2010.
• 20 million minors are Facebook users.
• Of the 20 million minors who use Facebook, 7.5 million are under the age of 13.
• In 2010 more than one million children were harassed, threatened or subjected to other forms of cyberbullying on Facebook.
• 72 percent of teens currently have a social networking profile and 47 percent of them say their profiles are public and viewable by anyone leaving them open to predators and other risks.
• 62 percent of teens post photos of themselves on social networking sites.
• 45 percent of teens post their school name on their social networking profile.
• 23 percent of teens say it would be "pretty easy" for someone to find out who they are from the information posted to their profile.
• Though Facebook has an age gate intended to prevent underage users from accessing the site, it's easy for kids to bypass this by falsifying their birth date because the site does not require a credit card to verify a person's age.
• Sixty-two percent of parents of 13- and 14-year-olds are their child's friend on Facebook, but only eighteen percent of parents of children ten years old or younger have taken the same step.
• In 2010 it is estimated that malicious software infections cost Americans more than $2.3 billion and caused them to replace 1.3 million PC's.
• 23 percent of Facebook users don't know some of their friends well enough to feel comfortable about their security.

(Sources: Consumer Reports, InternetSafety101.org, Trend Micro research)