Most people are keen to jump on the social media bandwagon regardless of gender, age, political beliefs, religious denomination or race. Despite the varied differences in user profiles, the one thing they should all have in common is an interest in privacy controls and safety.It didn’t take long to realise that although social media is a great way to communicate, find long lost friends and perhaps make new ones, it also leaves us exposed if we don’t take advantage of the security features that are available to us. We post photos from family vacations, let others know when our kids do well in the 5K, send birthday wishes to friends and family and sometimes even vent after having a bad day. Is this content that we want to share with those we don’t know?Did you ever stop and wonder who actually views all of the personal content that you have just shared? I am always amazed when I see a birthday alert for someone that hates to acknowledge their birthday, or silly photos of that person who normally refuses to have their photo taken, because they haven’t added privacy settings to their profile.I’m not suggesting that social media shouldn’t be used, but that you familiarise yourself with the functionality of the platform that you elect to use.We take the time to read instruction manuals when we buy new devices, ingredients contained in our medicines and the food that we eat, doesn’t it make sense that we truly understand what happens to the content we upload?The most commonly used social media sites contain detailed instructions on how to adjust your privacy settings and describe the various types of filters that can be applied to your account.Privacy guides for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and the majority of the other social sites can be found along the bottom of their home pages under the heading privacy. If you decide to make changes to your existing profiles, you will need to log into the respective site in order to do so.I encourage you all to take a few minutes to learn a bit more about your preferred social media platform before your next upload.See you all next week when we take a look at gamification.