This video provides four essential tips for safe internet use, emphasizing the permanence of online information, the importance of privacy settings, smartphone safety, and how to handle hacking. It aims to educate viewers on how to protect their personal information and maintain their online safety.

If you're watching this right now, my powers of deduction tell me that there's about a one hundred percent chance that you use the internet. I'm so smart. Thanks for logging onto YouTube today and checking out Wellcast. We're super glad you're here. Since you've already conveniently placed yourself online, we're going to talk to you today about internet safety. Now, wait a minute, okay, before you roll your eyes and say, "My mom told me all about internet safety already," or "My surf instructor explained to me the dangers of leaving information on the internet," just hear me out, alright? We spend a lot of time on the internet here at Wellcast, and we give pretty awesome advice. I think you'll agree. So today, we're going to give you our top four things that you absolutely need to know about internet safety. Are you ready? Tip one. The internet is forever, ever, ever, ever. That was all in-house. No joke, anything that you put on the internet, no matter how old, could be there until you have grandchildren of your own who will be Googling you. I mean, if Google is even still a thing in 40 years, I mean, who knows, maybe Bing can make a great comeback. So what do you do? Well, start by Googling your name, your phone number, your address, just to find out what's really floating around out there. Plus, it's kind of fun. If you're on social media, and who isn't, use the strictest privacy settings out there. Tip two, don't put personal information online. 73% of teens and 68% of young adults are on social networking sites. Of those people, roughly half post personal information, phone numbers, addresses, emails. Don't do that. If you do, it leaves you open for attacks from either cyber bullies or just some weird folks who want to take advantage of you. Do yourself a favor and ask a trusted friend what private information they can see on your sites. If you're not happy with the answer, remove it. Tip three, don't forget about smartphone safety. In an era of smartphones, cyber safety should extend to your phone too, especially when it comes to tech safety. Remember how your parents warned you about accepting car rides from strangers? Alright, don't accept phone calls or texts from strangers either. Only answer texts and phone calls from your contact list. Tip four, handle hacking intelligently. Part of being a member of the world wide web is being aware that no matter how careful you are, your account may get hacked. Getting hacked sucks, but it isn't the end of the world and there are a few important things to do when you get hacked to ensure your safety. A, change that password and make the new one secure. Make it unpredictable. According to a CBS article, "password" was the most popular password of 2012, followed by "123456". People, we can do better than this. If you're really going for all-out cyber safety, and you should, check to see if your email service provides two-step verification. It's not impossible, but that is a hard nut to crack. B, check your sent box and let any affected people know that you were spammed, especially if your account sent out a phishing link. Your friends deserve to know what's up. C, do a sweep of your computer with antivirus software. Odds are not only did you send something nasty out to your friends, you might have something nasty lurking in the recesses of your hard drive. D, back up your files. If there's a virus your computer doesn't catch, you don't want to lose everything. Okay, backing up files is totally a chore, but you'll be really happy you did it. Go ahead and invest in a cheap, portable hard drive and keep it somewhere safe. To recap, remember these points: 1. Anything you put on the internet will be there for a very long time. Believe me, I've thought a lot about this. 2. Your personal information shouldn't be visible to everybody. 3. Do not accept phone calls or texts from strange numbers. 4. If you're hacked, change your password, check that sent box, and clean off your hard drive ASAP. Ah, well, that's all for me today, Wellcasters. Would you do me a kindness? Subscribe to our channel, sign up for our newsletter to receive sneak peeks and other awesome stuff. See you later!