December 21st, 2010
In the past decade, the meteoric rise of social media networks like Facebook and MySpace gave birth to a new digital generation that is more tech-savvy and exposed than ever. The generation gap between parents and kids has widened, and horror stories about sexting, flaming and all forms of cyberbullying have sent parents into a digital frenzy.
In the media, the Internet is often portrayed as an unpatrolled playground crawling with sexual predators and cyber criminals eager to take advantage of our little sisters, brothers, nieces and nephews. Paranoia? Yes and no. While teens are likely more media literate than overprotective parents are willing to believe, recent studies found that kids under 12 in particular are indeed not sophisticated Internet users and more vulnerable to harassment. The anonymous nature of the Internet allows for faceless criminals to “walk up” to our little ones and cause irreparable emotional and physical damage beyond our wildest imagination.
Thankfully, a myriad of organizations have sprouted up to help parents and kids find a happy medium – one from which they can reap the benefits of unprecedented connectivity and minimize the risk involved with untimely exposure to sexual content, verbal abuse and obscenity in the absence of parental oversight.
The world’s most popular networking sites, Facebook, Bebo and MySpace, all have age restrictions that prevent children under 13 from joining. However, a UK watchdog found that 25% of those surveyed under 13 lied about their age and had an online presence.
So what’s a concerned parent to do? A niche networking site, Yoursphere, caught our attention. Mary Kay Hoal, a mother of five and former media executive, founded the site to provide a safe and controlled platform for children and teens through 18. The multi-step registration process involves sophisticated parental identity verification and sex offender registry screening – essentially Facebook for kids with a bullet-proof vest. While Yoursphere is a for-profit website, it provides a great alternative to the wild west of our evolving digital landscape and affords anxious parents some peace of mind.
Other pioneer educational non-profits and agencies worth looking at include:
Family Online Safety Institute: http://www.fosi.org/
Common Sense Media: http://www.commonsensemedia.org/
ConnectSafely: http://www.connectsafely.org/
WebWiseKids: http://www.webwisekids.org/
iKeepSafeInternet Safety Coalition: http://www.ikeepsafe.org/
National Cyber Security Alliance: http://staysafeonline.org/
To note: The renowned Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project and Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) have teamed up to conduct an extensive study focused on teenagers’ online activities and digital citizenship. The report will be the first of its kind to examine today’s digital natives’ attitude and behavior in a methodical and multidimensional way. We will keep an eye out for the expected results a year from now.
