I would like to revisit a blog I wrote in May last year. The one thing I would really love for you to take from this blog, is that you promise yourself to be more actively involved in supporting your child to negate technology and their use of the internet. Learn about the apps your child is using and accessing and please, have lively conversations about the internet!
I love the internet. I love having information at my fingertips. I love the fact that Facebook gives me daily updates from friends and family overseas and I love catching up on missed television shows or re-watching Eurovision clips. Most of all, I love the possibilities the internet presents. As adults, we can control our internet usage, be conscious of who’s watching our usage and the impacts of certain aspects of the web, but what about our kids?
I have been reading a variety of articles on adolescents and how to support them in negating technology, in particular their use of the internet. This made me think about my own digital footprint. Did I really know or understand what it means to leave a digital footprint? The answer was no and when the answer is no to something – I need to find out the answer! I found myself on a mission to discover what a digital footprint actually is.
Basically, every time you go online or post something online, you leave a data trail known as a digital footprint. The web browser remembers each website you visit and also the websites you visit note that you have visited and may track the websites you visited before and after their website. It’s a complicated web that does not get any easier to understand.
If I am going to teach my son to negate technology, I need to show him how to use the internet and home technology responsibly. It’s not going to be easy and I know our strategies will change. One aspect I really want my son to understand is social media. Social media has made such an impact on our young people that they don’t even realise they are using it. I asked a few students today about their Facebook accounts and was concerned to hear that they didn’t even know all of their ‘friends’ on Facebook. When asked why they adding them, the answer was “I don’t know”!
Another social media app our students are currently into is Snapchat. The idea of Snapchat is simple: send a photo or short video to a friend and it will self-destruct, although a lot of people use it for sexting and use sexting snapchat usernames. Really? What if someone takes a screen shot of the ‘snap’ and then passes it on? And even if the photo ‘destructs’, deleted information can always be retrieved.
Our children need to think carefully about what they are posting and the messages they are sending to their friends. They need to think about the language they use. They need to understand that their name can be typed into a search engine and information about them can be revealed to anyone. It’s scary how our children are so trusting of technology and do not question it’s motives and dangers.
I suggest that families and colleges needs to work together to educate our children and support each other in regards to technology use. Every family is different, and what works for one, may not work for another however it is important that we, as parents, are having these conversations with our children. They need to feel supported. They need to know they can come to us for help whenever there is an issue and when they don’t feel comfortable with anything they encounter on any technology based application.
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