When I am faced with cautionary tales I can’t help but relate to them as a parent. I imagine my children addicted to social media and struggling with their mental health, and I am terrified of them being caught up in cyberbullying. In many ways digital technology has been a blessing, but there is also a dark side to it. As a parent my job is to protect my children, but also prepare them to face the hard things that the world throws at them. We don’t raise our children in isolation though. Friends, extended family, churches, clubs and schools all have an impact on our children. We all have a role to play in shaping our children, and educators are a vital part of helping their students navigate the digital world.
In the Social Dilemma the framework and business model of social media companies is explored, as well as the various negative impacts they have had on our world. There seems to be this growing sense that social media is more harmful than helpful, but because of its addictive nature its popularity has not diminished. In addition to recommending stronger government regulation of advertisements and algorithm manipulation the documentary also recommends that digital citizenship be taught in our schools.
I think there are two aspects to encouraging students to have a healthy relationship with social media. First, I think students need to be aware of how social media is used to manipulate them, and the inadvertent negative impacts such as polarization and self esteem issues. If students can learn to recognize misleading information this will enable them to critically examine the motivation and worldviews they are being exposed to. Secondly, I think that we need to model healthy relationships with technology. Cell phone bans are an attempt to get students to unplug, and focus on their peers and immediate studies. These need to be paired with modelling of positive use of technology. We must balance our need to protect kids from the negative aspects of social media while also recognizing the opportunities it provides (Media Smarts).
The other documentary I explored this week was the Sextortion of Amanda Todd. The tragic suicide of Amanda Todd is a wakeup call to better protect our students, and look for the warning signs that they are falling victim to something they cannot handle. When kids trust the wrong person, or have a momentary lapse in judgement the public humiliation can be overwhelming. As educators we have a duty to protect our students, and also to raise awareness amongst students parents and community members of how harmful cyberbullying and stalking can be.
The most terrifying part of Amanda’s story for me is how hard she and her family fought to escape her torment, but how relentless it was. Our systems just didn’t help her, and I am not sure we have made much progress in this fight. This year a student chose to leave the school I teach at because something was shared online and she didn’t want to face her peers after that humiliation. It seems that our justice and school system try to respond, but their efforts are too slow or inadequate. How do we as a system protect these vulnerable kids? I feel like we are still struggling to save the Amanda Todd’s, and that breaks my heart.
Thank you for this well written post! You have said what I wanted to say in a much clearer way.
How do we save these kids? The answer is so complex. But I believe we must start with what you outlined as the two aspects to encouraging students to have a healthy relationship with social media. I strongly feel they need to understand the intentional attempt at manipulation – and as you said “enable them to critically examine the motivation and worldviews they are being exposed to”. I am also a parent and this is so frightening.
I do understand the intent of the cell phone ban, however I do not have confidence that the kids are going to see healthy modelling of technology use at home. I believe as educators, this has to be done within the schools as well.
There is certainly no easy answer…..
I was a huge fan of the cell phone ban when it first came out, but this course has caused me to think a bit more critically about it. On the positive side I think that it models to students that there is a time to unplug from our devices and focus on the people and tasks in front of us. On the other hand some families need support in developing healthy technology habits. I think what I have come around to is that we need to teach digital citizenship, we need to teach our students about the bad things that can happen online, and we need to have students engage technology in a healthy way. I don’t think we need cell phones in class to do most of these things, but if I wanted to teach my students about how to have a social media account that still protects their privacy for example, we may need to make allowances for cell phone use in that specific instance.
I agree with you that as frightening as some of these stories are we just need to keep educating the kids we teach (and our own kids too) about how much and what the best uses of social media are.
I agree with what you stated regarding the balance of approaches when teaching students about the importance of safety. We cant simply just ban the cell phones as something “bad” like alcohol, and then when they become let free they just go crazy and don’t know how to handle themselves with their phone. We have to teach kids how to properly use these “tools”.
I too relate to all these cautionary tales as a parent and it scares the heck out of me. How can we protect our kids from things like this? Well we start by what you stated in your post about the balance, and educating them about what these social media outlets are trying to do with their brains. It may be hard for them to grasp, but we have to keep trying until it sticks.
I feel for Amanda’s story and It’s completely devastating that even when trying to escape the stalker they could not. WOW! That is the scariest part you are right! There are some scary people out there, and the thing is they hide in plain sight sometimes.