Do you sometimes feel like you need a dictionary to keep up on the terminology of the World Wide Web? Does your knowledge of Internet shorthand stop at using the word "email" for electronic mail? The abbreviations, the tweeting, the IMing, the OMGs; it can all be a little confusing and overwhelming for a person who is not in the know about Internet slang.
And if you are a parent you might feel lost when talking to your children about their online life.
This is not a good feeling for a parent to have.
You want to be in the know when it comes to your child's life, and with the Internet world it's even more difficult to stay on top of what's going on.
The best thing you can do as a parent is educate yourself on these things.
Almost every family in the United States is connected to the Internet at home.
These days dial up Internet isn't cutting it anymore either.
To really have full usage of all of the Internet's bells and whistles you need to have a high speed connection through either cable, DSL, or satellite Internet.
It used to be that high speed connections were only available in limited places before the invention of satellite Internet.
But now that satellite Internet is here, anyone from anywhere can get a high speed connection.
It's almost impossible to not have the Internet.
You need it for your own use and the kids are evening using it to complete homework assignments.
So getting rid of the Internet all together probably isn't an option.
It wouldn't fix the problem anyway.
The solution is having a better idea of what goes on in your child's Internet world.
There is a multitude of different websites that kids are using these days.
Many of these sites allow them to create an online profile about themselves and post photos online for their friends to see.
Ask your children what sites they are using.
It is important as a parent for you to know what kinds of sites they are using to keep in touch with friends and sometimes make new ones.
You might run into some confusion when it comes to the lingo of the Internet world.
Well, what do you know...
there are websites out there to help with that too.
You may have noticed that all of a sudden your child is talking in abbreviations and you are completely lost to what she is trying to communicate.
She might say "OMG, Mom, that is like TMI!" and you might wonder what in the heck she is talking about.
You can easily do a quick Google search and find websites like InternetSlang.
com that have a full dictionary of web slang abbreviations.
You may have heard your kids talking about tweeting and wondered what their newfound interest in birds was about.
Well they were probably talking about the website Twtter which seems to have a language all of its own.
Someone has even created a "twittonary" for users who aren't in the know.
You probably won't ever understand all the Internet slang your kids are using, and you probably don't care to, but now you can put the Internet to good use as well by keeping up with the slang they are using.