This is a topic that has really been in my thoughts lately. I have been friend requested on FB by parents of my students as well as my student. (I have a rule -- no students and if their parents are not my friends in real life, then I'd rather not add them either.) As I started looking through my pictures on FB, I tried to imagine what they would see. While we always hear, you can't judge a book by it's cover, the reality is, we make it easy for people to judge us. And -- in doing that, we make it easy for people to judge our friends and families as well. This was so apparent to me with the shootings in Tucson. This was such a sad and tragic event, and what struck me as so sad, was the statement given by the parents of the shooter. They will be forever judged by the things their son put up on social media sites. "How could parents not know he was a whack job!" -- I hear that a lot.
Liv has asked how old she has to be to have a facebook. My answer is "I'm not sure, but it will definietly not be before the age of 13. Even then, I'm not sure. I'll have to really think about it a lot." So, in light of students sending me requests, I have been thinking about how to address this issue with them. I realized that this is a very personal choice as a parent. As a technology teacher at a catholic school, it isn't my job to tell parents what they should or should not do, but IS my job to teach ethics, safety, and privacy to their children. It's not only my job, but also my responsibility to teach my students how to be safe (as well as apply it to my own children). It has started REALLY interesting discussions in class with my middle school students. Since it's a catholic school we can really address the morality and social implications of it all. What kind of person do I really want to be? And what do I want people to see when they look at me, read about me, get to know me? are those two things the same?
So, I did a little experiment. In about 15 minutes I was able to find about 30 of my middle school students. Most of them did not have privacy setting engaged and I was able to see photos, info, walls, you name it. Two of them had everything blocked. TWO!!!
the digital imprint we leave is forever. There is a record of it forever. When they turn 18 and are applying to college, will what they said online or the pictures they posted at the age of 12 and 13 keep them from getting into college? Will it keep them from getting hired at a job at 22? The answer is most definitely yes. Yes because they lack the maturity to keep from posting things they shouldn't and yes because they don't know enough about privacy controls.
Here are some interesting links I have found:
- Facebook and myspace have an age limit of at least 13 - http://www.compunoodle.com/facebook-minimum-age/
- FBI recomments kids under 18 not have social networking sites: http://newsanchormom.blogspot.com/2010/03/facebook-age-limit.html
- Facebook makes it easy to report under age children: http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=underage
- very powerful real life examples of how social networking sites impact kids (ages 11-17): http://www.netsmartz.org/RealLifeStories
I keep a blog for my students on our school email/secure social network. In discussion in class, I told my students: "when I post a blog for you, I think carefully. You will see it and your parents will see it. What do my words say about the kind of teacher I am, what do my words say about the kind of mom, the kind of daughter, the kind of friend I am. What do my actions say about those thing? This topic with my students has been a valuable reminder for my life in general.
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