According to Profile Tree, 90% of college students worldwide actively use social media as a strong and reliable academic resource. A lot of educational institutions around the globe have accepted social media as a powerful tool for learning. Further, as per QS Quacquarelli Symonds, 87% of UK students claim to use social media daily.
However, it is important to prioritise your safety when using social media applications. As reported by Astra Security on 9th January 2025, there used to be 2200 cyberattacks per day. What you share on social media might be your decision, but what others choose to do with that information and data may not always be in your control. Therefore, it is essential to take your online safety and security seriously.
In this article, we shall explore the top 9 critical social media safety tips that every student should be aware of in 2025. Let’s get started.
How Can Students Stay Safe on Social Media?
For the purpose of staying secure on social media, students should carefully manage their privacy by connecting only with the people they know. They should also use strong passwords and be cautious about sharing personal information with people they do not trust or are not familiar with. They should also learn how to report and block the users who may sound a little suspicious.
Some of the important guidelines that students can follow for staying safe on social media are listed below:
- You should adjust the privacy settings to control who can see your personal information and posts.
- It’s also important to create unique and complex passwords for social media accounts and avoid sharing such information with others.
- You should also be mindful of the potential consequences of your social media posts before sharing them online.
- Do not click on the suspicious links or the attachments that come from suspicious senders.
- The students also be careful that when something is posted online, it can be tough to erase the digital footprint and the entire internet can access it.
- They should only accept friend requests from such kind of people they know in real life.
- If you face bullying online, you should report it to the authorities.
Also, when seeking help from an assignment writing website in the UK, students should ensure they choose only legitimate and reliable companies. Proper vetting is essential before selecting a website to avoid scams and low-quality services. Researching reviews, verifying credentials, and checking for secure payment options can help them make informed decisions.
What Are the Safety Tips for Using Social Media?
Social media essentially can link friends with each other and help everyone stay connected but it can be a dangerous place as well. Data breaches still continue to happen at various social media sites. This can compromise the personal information of all the people who become a victim of such data breaches.
Students also need to be aware of all the social media safety tips that are prevalent in 2025. It is not bad to be on social media applications; what is essential is to know how to be entirely safe and secure.
Let’s dive deeper into the details of such important safety guidelines now.
- Keep the Personal Information Private
Your telephone number, date of birth, email address, location, and home address should be in the safe hands. When you create new social media accounts, you should ensure that your personal details are not available online. You should be vigilant enough not to share too many personal details online.
Some of the most essential guidelines to follow for this purpose are the following:
- When you are about to sign up for something online, you should read their terms and conditions.
- You should always avoid entering your financial information on a website that seems unsafe or secure.
- If you think that your credit card information is being mishandled or misused on online platforms, you should report the activity. It is always better to use a mobile banking app.
It’s beyond important to safeguard your personal information even when you are offline because once your sensitive information has been stolen, it can be forwarded online. When you are making purchases in public places, you should shield the PIN pad and if possible, use a chip debit card for the purpose of keeping your financial information secure.
2. Reduce the Digital Footprint
According to the Cyber Security Centre for the Isle of Man, a digital footprint is information that is deliberately shared by you and that can be collected by other people or companies online. The digital footprint of a person should not be too extensive. Some tips to reduce it are the following:
- Get rid of all the old email accounts.
- Skip the online surveys that can ask for the most personal and private details. However, you can attempt the ones that explain why personal information is needed.
- Limit the use of social media accounts and deactivate the ones that you do not use at all.
- You should pause before clicking on anything online which may seem suspicious.
- You should also avoid sharing your primary email address with people and it will be better to use a disposable email address when you have to do online shopping.
- It is always better to change the social media privacy settings to limit the access of people who are out of your close circle to the content that you share.
- Only provide the mandatory information when setting up online accounts on any social media application.
- You should also be mindful to use the private mode when using the internet so that nobody can access the websites that you are using.
- It can also be a great idea to use the private browser extension which is made by a reputable provider.
- Use a VPN app, which is easier to set up; whenever you have to look up personal information, you should use it.
These activities can reduce your digital footprint and help you maintain a sound and safe social media profile online. Following these social media safety tips will also add a layer of security to your online presence; not everyone can access the students to track their activities.
3. Report When You See Inappropriate Content
The reporting features on online websites and social media exist for a reason. If you come across anything suspicious or inappropriate online, you should report it using the reporting features and tell someone you trust for their advice. All the major social media accounts have the option that you can use to report objectionable content online.
You can also add the relevant reasons for reporting the content if you want to. Also, avoid sharing inappropriate online activities with your friends or family. Online reporting is a quick and fair way. It takes the malicious activity away from you and makes your social media browsing experience relatively better than before.
4. Be Careful About Who You ‘Add’ Online
Just because someone appears friendly or engaging does not mean they are genuine or trustworthy. You can never be sure about people’s intentions about you; therefore, you should be extra careful about who you add to your social media accounts.
When people try to add you on social media, it will be wise of you to think about why a stranger might want you to add them and why they believe it is essential for them to be on your friend list without getting to know you first. There might be some genuine friend requests from some people, but overall, you have to be quite skeptical about the entire practice.
It is a common tactic used by scammers to exploit people close to them. Before meeting people in public, ensure that you have spent enough time to know them first, and always ensure that anyone among your friends or family is aware that you will meet someone new.
5. Don’t Enable Access to All Applications
When you install a new application, you will be asked to give it permission. If you do not give the information to everything in your phone, you can keep the data secure. This should be applied when there is data that you do not want to share with online applications and the data that must be kept safe. Most apps allow the users to say no to several online permission requests.
When using an application, if you suspect some malicious activity, you can always go to the settings app of your phone and revoke all the access you have given. Generally, different applications ask for access to these features and elements of one’s phone:
- Location
- Camera
- Contact Numbers
- Files
- Microphone and more
You should enable access for only such kinds of applications that are legit to use otherwise, it can become a massive privacy threat. Students need to be on the safer side of the internet because they are too young to tackle the dangers of the social world. Furthermore, their studies should be their prime area of focus; therefore, they should limit their use of social media applications.
6. Enable Multi-Factor Authentication
MFA is necessary for enabling your online accounts because it adds multiple layers of security to students’ online accounts. If someone were to discover your Twitter or Instagram password, multi-factor authentication would prevent them from accessing your account. It is because they will fail to verify your identity.
The three main ways to add MFA to your accounts are the following
a) Authenticator Applications
These generate TOTPs, codes that can be produced every 30-60 seconds. To verify your identity, you can copy and paste such a time-based password into the login portal once you have entered your password.
b) Hardware Security Keys
You can see them as some sort of USB-type device that can verify your identity once you have tapped them or inserted them into your device. This kind of authentication is pretty easy to do.
c) Email and SMS Tokens
SMS and email tokens are the most popular authentication methods because they are easy to use. You can receive an OTP through an email or text message and enter that code into the login portal after adding your password.
Strengthening authentication through MFA is one of the most popular academic research areas in the cyber safety domain. A well-chosen cybersecurity dissertation topic offers university students multiple opportunities to explore emerging threats, technologies, and solutions.
7. Avoid Downloading Suspicious Applications
Students who do not have digital literacy may download applications that contain harmful malware for their phones or systems. Some applications do have malware which infects the devices of the client. Such malware can corrupt the existing data of the students and may even be used by hackers to access sensitive information and then misuse it for their purposes.
Different third-party app stores have a lot of harmful and fake applications with fake codes. Students must avoid downloading the APK files for mobile devices as these are not always secure and can be a threat to the safety of the user’s data.
Some key guidelines to follow in this regard are the following:
- Carefully check the permissions requested by the said application.
- Ensure to check the user reviews before downloading it to check its legitimacy.
- It is important to use a reliable antivirus program to scan already downloaded programs.
- Avoid downloading social applications from random pop-ups.
- Carefully review the privacy policies of the applications to understand how your data will be used.
- Students must also be careful enough not to download apps that have not been updated in a long time.
When looking to download good applications for the desktop, students should deem it important to stick to the official app stores. Such stores have great security measures and can be trusted even for online purchases. Examples of such repositories for software include Microsoft Store for Windows and Linux distributions.
8. Pick Strong Passwords
It is important for students to use strong passwords to protect their social media accounts. As per Rainn, a strong password can save you from a hacking attempt at your account. The people who want to hack your account do not obviously have good intentions with your work, as they wish to impersonate or stalk you or spread some spam from your accounts.
Apart from choosing strong passwords and updating them periodically, it is essential not to share your passwords with others and to keep all the information safe and secure. Some of the important guidelines about choosing strong passwords for social media accounts, according to Boston University, are the following:
- Use different kinds of passphrases.
- The passwords or passphrases that you use must be unique.
- You should also go for using a strong password manager.
- Cybersecurity check-ups should also be conducted to review safety and confidentiality rules.
- There should be capitalisation of some letters, and also you should use numbers in your work.
- If you have a memorable quote or a phrase like that, you can also use it in your work.
Picking strong passwords can also keep the privacy of your accounts from getting compromised. Also, they let you keep all your personal and social media information safe and secure. You can have firm control over the data that you are posting.
9. Avoid Sharing the Travel Plans Before They Happen
It’s really common for people to share their vacation plans on social media even before they happen. They think it’s not even a vacation if one does not post it on Instagram. If you make the mistake of posting the travel details on social media, it will be better if you do not do that.
It is important because someone can easily target your home in your absence because they know you will be gone for an extended period. To stay safe from any unfortunate incident, you should avoid sharing your geo-location online and always post the least personal information online. The world does not need to know your business.
Also, you are unaware if creepy people are watching your activity online through your posts. If you are travelling and posting about it, the best thing to do is post all the data once you have reached home. This way, everything stays safe and protected to the maximum degree.
What Are the 10 Rules of E-Safety?
The Internet is not a safe place for everyone. Students should adopt healthy measures to avoid cybersecurity dangers whenever they or their families are online. According to Kaspersky, the top ten principles for the establishment of an e-safety system are the following:
- Ensure that you are using a secure connection to the internet.
- Pick a strong password to ensure no weak spots regarding cybersecurity.
- You should be mindful enough to enable multi-factor authentication where you can.
- All the operating systems and the software should be kept updated and you should ensure that all the products are kept safe.
- Don’t forget to check that the websites feel reliable and look authentic to the readers.
- You must always deeply understand the privacy policies and review your accounts’ privacy settings for e-safety purposes.
- You should also be careful about the suspicious links and avoid them.
- All your devices must be secured correctly and protected by strong passwords. You can also go for other strict security options.
- Back up all your data regularly and keep your personal information on external hard drives.
- If you happen to have a lot of old accounts that you no longer use, you should close them.
Furthermore, it is not advisable to use public Wi-Fi because it leaves you vulnerable to cyberattacks. You should also use the latest apps and operating systems versions because they enable people to benefit from the latest security patches. Furthermore, be careful with all the interactions that you do with people who are online. It’s better to be sceptical when it comes to trusting others.
Conclusion
This was all about the top 9 essential tips for social media safety that every student should know in 2025. Most of us regularly use the internet to interact with family and friends. Still, we should always be careful about our online security and safety. Discussing the safety perspective; you can contact professional assignment writing services online if you need completely secure and confidential academic help. These companies ensure the provision of entirely safe assistance to students struggling with their academics.
Following these social media safety tips, you can ensure you are free from potential risks. Excessive sharing can harm you; hence, you need to abstain from it. Be careful about who you add on social media and who you meet online.
Author Bio
Gary Williams, a social media expert and an expert assignment writer with 12 years of experience, is passionate about emerging social media trends and cybersecurity. He enjoys helping students navigate their academic journeys with specialist guidance. When he is not online, you can find him cooking new dishes and cherishing quality time with his family. Gary’s blend of expertise and personal touch makes him a relatable guide for anyone navigating the digital world.