By: Erin Simonek

Shan Wu provided 21WFMJ with three tips for social media posting to help teenagers avoid incident.

1. Assume nothing you post is private. Even disappearing messages can be captured before they disappear so nothing on social media is really private.
2. Take up the telephone again – talk to friends rather than through posts/messaging because speech – unlike Snapchat – really does disappear into thin air!
3. If something goes wrong don’t try to defend yourself on social media – that’s a recipe for disaster that only worsens things. The best solution is usually to just go dark.

Teenagers are constantly posting, tweeting and snapping their thoughts, photos and videos to their different social media.

“These are people that may be making mistakes that could be unfortunate and could carry through with them for a while,” said Adam Earnheardt, Youngstown State University Social Media Professor.

Now more than ever during a pandemic, colleges look at student’s social media pages as a background check.