Roisin Markham

Are you a parent or do you work with kids/teens who use the internet?

Originally written in January 2017, edited and published in December 2019. No reference links available.

In 2014 I briefly researched and worked on children’s online safety and protection linked to digital identity and digital citizenship. Around that time I was asked to advise on a speaker for a talk on internet safety at my kid’s primary school – he came and spoke, I distinctly remember that he was out of touch – his slides still featured myspace and he didn’t know what Snapchat was. But I was aghast at the lack of knowledge by parents. Some of them got on Facebook but more of them did not and worse still few of them were keeping up with what their kids were up to in the digital world.

I understood that in Ireland Webwise were the go-to site for parents, guardians and educators. I got connected to the Be-smart programme that TrendMicro runs.
On some level, I thought they’ve got this…

Roll on 2017… those younger kids are all full-on screenagers; digital has gotten more accessible, most have access to a screen, camera and wifi and have become inseparable from their devices.

A discussion recently with teens asking me my opinion “what do you think of nudity online and people asking for naked pictures” revealed shocking truths about normality, sexuality, privacy, body parts and social media. What are kids and teens snapping, sharing and the texting? It can seem to be without consequences and yet it has to have significant consequences for their development as young people.

In what society is it normal for children and young people to be exchanging sexual images of themselves – the normality and social acceptability of sexting of asking for dick pictures and exchanging the girl equivalent – really? Yes, really that is now normal.

In a recent Guardian article on children’s Digital Rights Jessica Elgot highlights that the Tech companies need to communicate Terms & Conditions in language children understand.

Children are being left to fend for themselves in the digital world, regularly signing over rights to their private messages and pictures unknowingly and with scant advice from parents or schools, according to England’s children’s commissioner.
Almost half of eight- to 11-year-olds have agreed to impenetrable terms and conditions give social media giants such as Facebook and Instagram control over their data, without any accountability, according to the commissioner’s Growing Up Digital taskforce.
It is a good read on the reality faced by children and teenagers, for some it will be shocking.

The article also calls for broader digital citizenship to be taught in schools. This was the subject of a recent discussion with Sarah-Jayne Carey who runs such a program in a Dublin based school. What does your kid’s school do?

A recent article in the Irish Times talks about what age to start educating kids about cyber safety – the real answer is whenever you first put a device in front of them.

I used to be concerned about how much time my gang spent in front of a screen and the balance between consumption and creation of content.

Older children are spending more time online and are more likely to go online alone, children aged 12-15 are spending more time online (rising from 14.9 hours a week to 17.1 hours) and spend as much time in a week using the internet as they do watching television. Up to 43 per cent of kids mostly use the internet in their bedrooms.

How much screen time is healthy for children? Expert tips on-screen safety, education, mental development and sleep – the information above is from a 2016 PC Advisor article.

Do you have rules around screen etiquette in your house? Is there a policy for digital use by young people where you work? Is there a digital citizenship charter in your library or community?
Can we begin by creating open dialogue with our kids and screenagers about what is really is going on with their tech? How are they communicating with others, what content are they sharing? What are they really clicking on, snaping, sharing and communicating? As horrified as we might be at the content lets equip the next generation on how to deal with the positives and negatives of being a digital citizen. With a two-way conversation, we can learn something different too.

So don’t withdraw access, educate, maybe limit use it’s a good negotiation tool, open conversations with your kids and their friends suspend judgement and fuming. If you can build the trust to have the open dialogue, do it.
Ask your kids school, the PTA, childminder, youth or sports club what their digital citizen approach is?

Is it a good idea to create a local digital citizenship charter?

I’ve started to reach out to people and have conversations, trying to decide the best course of action for our screenagers. In actual fact it might be easier for me to talk and listen to your teens – they might open up more – but don’t shirk the opportunity to have an honest reflection of where humanity is heading.