Geeks on Call, a national IT leader for residential customers, recently released an internet safety guide for parents. The guide focuses on instant messaging, social networking, and emailing among teenagers. There is also an internet lingo dictionary included to help parents decipher the acronyms their teenagers use on the internet.

Text Messaging and Instant messaging has become the most popular way for teenagers to communicate with their friends and total strangers. Teenagers text and IM daily utilizing their own net lingo that is totally foreign to parents. Teenagers feel a sense of empowerment of having a secret form of communication that  parents can’t decode.  Due to the thousands of different acronyms and codes, parents become overwhelmed and give up on cracking codes that they see their teenagers utilize daily. The problem is that there are predators that lurk in chat rooms and on instant messaging sites that take advantage of young people. Look at some of the common text messaging terms below:

PAW- Parents are Watching

PIR- Parents in Room

LMIRL- Lets Meet in Real Life

NIFOC- Nude in front of computer

P911- Parent Alert

POS- Parent over Shoulder

Luckily, Erin Jansen has created a wonderful website for parents called netlingo.com that allows the user to define different acronyms. Netlingo.com serves as an online dictionary for parents. If you see your child using any type of suspicious codes or acronyms, then go to www.netlingo.com and type them in and within seconds you will get the definitions.