I know I might sound a little crazy, but I sometimes wonder what would happen if one of my kids got hurt while on a bike or out running. Who would know who they are? How would I be contacted? As much as we, as parents, get frustrated with kids who always seem glued to their screens, there’s some advantages of having kids carrying a phone with them at all times.

One, of course, is that parents can contact their kids easily. And kids can contact parents if they need them. In fact, many teens have ICE (In Case of Emergency) contacts in their phone. So if they are hurt or unable to call, it’s easy to see who their emergency contact is. Many teens have ‘ICE’ next to their parents name in the contacts of the phone. Which makes sense, right? It seems like a great idea, a way to keep kids safe and enable anyone (whether it’s their friend, a paramedic, or another adult) to call a parent if their child is in trouble? Not so much.

A friend of mine has a nephew in college. One night, this young man got up at 2 a.m. to go to the bathroom. He walked out of his room and took a left turn, thinking he was heading for the bathroom. Unfortunately, the bathroom was on the right. He tumbled down the concrete basement stairs of the college campus house that he and his buddies were renting for the year.

When the friends asked the doctors and nurses, they said that they had no emergency contact information. The friends then realized that they did not have this young man’s parents’ phone numbers. Someone mentioned that he probably had ICE in his phone. The hospital personnel told them that they could not access the information because it was beyond the lock screen!

This story made me think of my own situation. I often ride a road bike for miles. I always have my phone tucked away on my bike, providing me piece of mind. However, if I were injured seriously, and unable to communicate, the phone would be utterly useless to any First Responder because of the lock screen.

As I spoke to parents about this, most responded quickly by telling me, “Oh, my child has me as his ICE contact.” However, as I questioned them on the conundrum of the lock screen, they would look at me, first with puzzlement, and then, with growing panic as it dawned on them how worthless ICE in contacts really is. What bothered me most is how overlooked this is. So I asked the question:

How can someone access emergency contact info on the phone of a person who’s unconscious or unable to unlock their phone?

The first and simplest answer is in the iPhone iOS 8.0 device. Every device comes with the Apple Health app preinstalled. Here is the icon displayed on the device:

The Apple Health app does everything from track your steps and exercise to track your nutrition, sleep and more. Here is an article with a information on the app itself .

While it has tons of functionality that I’m not interested in, it does contain what could possibly be life saving functionality for both me and my children. I can input an emergency contact (along with key medical data such as allergies, blood type, etc.) and that information can all be accessed without unlocking your phone. This feature is called Medical ID.

How to Set Up Medical ID

• Open the Health app and click “Medical ID” tab at the bottom of the screen. Input emergency contact (and any other relevant medical information) into the form.
• Edit the info to “show when locked” so that the ID can be seen when the screen is locked.
• To find this info on any phone, slide to open. You’ll see the keypad for a password, but on the lower left is the word “Emergency.” Tap that, and it gives you the option to speed-dial 911, or access Medical ID. Tap that, and you’re in.

While the information is available, someone has to know how to access it. The more people use this app and talk about it, the more awareness and use of this powerful tool will grow. Please do two things:

1. Set this up on your child’s phone, and show them how it works. It’s a simple way to be sure your teens have you listed as their emergency contact, and that the information is accessible to anyone.
2. Second, please pass this post along to a friend, or share it on your social media page. The more people know about and use this app, the safer our children will be.

For those Android users, there are similar apps in Google Play. While they are not factory installed as it is on the iOS device, there are downloadable apps in the Play store.  Some are free, while others that offer greater functionality, have a small price.

Back to my friend’s nephew….his roommates, fortunately, heard the noise from him falling, and rushed out to find him at the bottom of the stairs. Sadly, he fractured his skull and had bleeding on the brain. His friends quickly called 911 and got him to the hospital, but his condition was dire. It was hours before his friends, sitting in the ER waiting room, realized that his parents had not been notified.  Nobody wants to be that parent.

Snapchat just got a little more permanent!

If you are wondering if your tween or teen is a snapchatter, chances are the answer is yes. A recent survey from the research firm Piper Jaffray indicates that Snapchat has overtaken the #1 spot for preferred social networking site for teens. One of the reasons for the surge in popularity is the premise that there is a lack of permanency to Snapchat. Teens are starting to grasp the concept that Instagram posts and Twitter tweets can affect their future, and therefore are turning more frequently to Snapchat which allows them to operate under the assumption that things shouldn’t, and won’t, live forever in the online world.

As the current #1, Snapchat must continually work to add features that appeal to their audience. It appears that the leader, who has cashed in on the ‘lack of permanency’ philosophy, is moving towards the storage of these images. They are in the process of adding a new feature that allows the user to save snaps (images) and Snapchat Stories (series of images) within Snapchat. This new feature, called ‘Memories’,will allow the snaps, or memories, to be reused in a later Snapchat story or sent to a friend at a future date.

What is interesting about this new feature is how these images will be saved and backed up by Snapchat. Here is how Snapchat explains it in their announcement of Memories feature:

Memories is backed up by Snapchat. We won’t backup any photos or videos from your Camera Roll, unless you use one to make a  new Story or add it to My Eyes Only. In that case, we’ll back up only the photo or video that you used.

Our teens’ images that are stored as Memories will live on forever in a more permanent way than previously thought. This new feature can be an opportunity to communicate how all images are public once they are shared on a social media site. Privacy does not exist in the online world and certainly not in the Snapchat community. When I asked my teen, who is a heavy user of Snapchat, why he likes it so much, his response was simply ‘because it is fun’. Sure. It is fun. But let’s just ensure that they understand the appropriate behavior, responsibility, and risks that come along with all social media.

This is a very well done video that addresses the lack and need for balance with social media. Parents are often looking for progressive ways to connect with their teens on such topics. This video is done in a style that appeals to teens and will give them some different things to consider and talk about.

Coach Sloane walking the course with student athlete

Guest blogger: Coach Renee Slone, Head Coach, University of Illinois Women’s Golf Team

Social media has now become a part of the recruiting process for prospective student-athletes and college coaches. This platform can make a significant impression on coaches and determine the course of action they follow with an individual recruit, both in a positive respect as well as a negative one.

My coaching staff at the University of Illinois often searches a recruit’s name to see if she has a social media presence. This is typically easiest to do with Facebook and a bit more challenging with Twitter. We do ask for the prospect’s Twitter handle and Skype name on our student-athlete questionnaire.  Not every prospective student-athlete has a social media presence but the majority do. For example, at the University of Illinois, we currently have a student-athlete who has no presence on social media at all. She says that she is just not interested in it nor has the time for it. On the other hand, we have student-athletes who have a strong presence on social media and we require that they show the utmost respect to the University, their team, and themselves.

Here at U of I, one of the goals of the recruiting process is to get to know the recruit as much as possible through watching her play in tournaments, talking to her on the phone, speaking to her high school coach, and having her visit the University. The coaching staff’s goal is to determine if there is a match between the recruit and the culture of our program. Social media has provided us with one more tool to use in this evaluation. From a positive perspective, we gain visibility into her personality, likes, dislikes, interests, and what she is willing to share publicly. It can demonstrate that she is a well rounded individual who will be an asset to the program. For example, some of our current players are gifted in the area of music and this is evident on their social media accounts. We can see a recruit’s involvement in her community or commitment to family, which all reflect positively on the recruit.

What else am I looking for on social media? My coaching staff is typically looking for red flags about a recruit. It is rare for a recruit’s social media actions to immediately dismiss her from the process. However, the recruit’s posts or pictures may alert us of something that we want to probe into a little more deeply during a phone call, campus visit, or during a competition. Or the post may confirm a question or suspicion we had about the recruit after watching her compete or speaking with her. We will look at photos, friends, as well as the language that she uses on social media. Of particular note is learning what a recruit chooses to comment on or who posts things to her page.

It is important to understand how the recruit chooses to use social media as it provides us with insight to both her maturity level and self confidence. In a positive way, as I talked about previously, it can be a wonderful way to display her talents and interests outside of golf and we like to see this. However, on the negative side, we sometimes see a recruit use it as way to gain attention or a reaction from her online world. This is a concern to us as it demonstrates a lack of maturity. One example of this is a recruit who tweeted after a poor performance in a tournament. The recruit had played poorly and reacted by being critical in the tweet about the tournament organizer. This caused us to question her level of respect as well as her ability to handle a poor performance. It did not reflect positively on her.

Photos can be very interesting as well. Student-athletes, parents and even coaches have all revealed some telling information on their sites. With this communication platform, it is difficult to decipher tone. What the recruit does not understand is that a person’s perception is their reality even if that is not the message the social media user intended. By this, I mean that as coaches look at social media, we are left to interpret and perceive a recruit’s posts and pictures without her there to explain them.  What we see is our reality even if it is not the actual reality of the recruit.

The oversharing of information tends to be a turn off for many coaches as we typically do not want to know what a prospect is doing every second of the day. Sharing frivolous things that are of little value in getting to know a person better does not warrant positive interest either. Social media can be a window into someone’s life as it allows them to paint a picture of themselves beyond the tournament results and rankings. We try to get to know the athlete well enough so that if something of particular interest arises via social media we can discuss it. In some instances, social media will eliminate a prospect from further recruitment and in other cases it will solidify continuing to build the relationship.

At the end of the recruiting process, the goal is not only to recruit the best golfer, but to recruit the best player for our program. Certainly her ability and performance is critical in this process. There have been instances where we have had two recruits who were very close in ability and rankings. We needed to look beyond the sport to determine the best fit for our program and her social media presence can be a factor in selecting one recruit over another.

Social media can be a wonderful platform to share who you are and what you believe in, but it is not to be taken lightly especially in this day and age. This becomes your personal brand for the entire world to see so it is very important to share wisely as this reveals your character. And character is certainly at the top of the list of qualities for student-athletes for the Women’s Golf Program at the University of Illinois!

Learn more about Coach Slone and the University of Illinois Women’s Golf Team.

Have you heard of Jott Messenger? I had not until I received an email from Jott Messenger the other day. So naturally I Googled it. Here is what I discovered from Common Sense Media:

JOTT MESSENGER allows kids to send text and photo messages to Instagram connections and friends at school. To create an account, kids have to enter a valid email address or cell phone number and then enter a PIN sent via email or text. Once an account is created, the app asks permission to look at your contacts: If you and a friend both use Jott Messenger, you’ll be able to start sending messages right away. You also can allow the app to use your phone’s GPS to help you find your schools. You can add any school without proof that you attend, but to see more than the basic profiles of other students, you have to ask a peer to verify you really go to that school. There also are lots of rules regarding behavior and easy-to-block-bully features.

The next thing I wondered was how popular is this app with kids. Apparently, it is quickly gaining steam! According to an article by CNN Money, it is described in these words:

A white-hot new app for instant messaging, Jott has nearly 500,000 monthly users and one million app installs after just three months on the market.

As with most apps, there are pros and cons to be considered. Jott seems to be no different. Similar to other messaging apps, it allows messaging without data plans. Therefore, kids without cell phones won’t be left out of the texting conversations. They can participate in one to one chats and group chats. But there are some concerns with Jott:

• Generally, parents are unaware of Jott’s existence. This allows kids to message freely, even if parents ‘check their texts’, as parents do not realize that Jott is being used.
• Although there are lots of rules regarding behavior, the content is not monitored. It is up to users to report inappropriate activity.
• Photos sent via Jott self destruct, similar to Snapchat. This can create a false sense of security among kids leading them to be a bit more daring in what they are willing to send to friends. Additionally, the photo can be captured by other users on their devices and kept permanently as well as shared with others.

Finally, the initial email that I received regarding Jott concerns me. The email was a notification that a young girl that I know was now using Jott.  The email stated the following (names have been changed):

Susie Smith is on Jott and has added you. Jennifer Jones and Katie Johnson have already joined.

Obviously, I know who Susie is, but I am not familiar with Jennifer and Katie. That is a significant concern that the names of other kids using the app are being shared with not just strangers, but adult strangers. I believe that when Susie created an account, she allowed the app to use her Instagram contacts to automatically connect with others. Talk to your kids about this feature and the risks associated with it. Additionally, there was a picture of Susie included in the email that I received. As a parent, I never want my child’s profile picture being sent via email to anyone.

To read a more comprehensive description of Jott, use this link to Common Sense Media.