As either the youngest millennial, the oldest member of Gen Z, or something called a “zillenial”, I came of age during the first decade of smartphones and social media. There was Facebook and Skype, but also flip phones; some of us had wifi and some of us still had dial-up until after Obama became President; the internet was still a place you went instead of a place you lived. Basically, it was the wild west of cyber safety education, and boy did it show.
When it came to online risks, the perpetrators were depicted as either incredibly alien or incredibly familiar: an anonymous middle-aged man lurking in a chat room pretending to be a 13 year old in order to lure in vulnerable teens or your bitter ex boyfriend or ex best friend sharing intimate photos of you with the entire school. Either way, perpetrators were almost always individuals rather than groups, companies, or societal institutions. I recall (at the time) little to no blame being levied towards tech giants and social media platform for lack of content moderation, or towards media that normalized and encouraged the sexualization of children and teens.
The solutions offered were equally individualistic, where directed towards the victims or perpetrators of online bullying and harassment. Girls were told not to take and send intimate photos to their partners or post them online; boys were told not to share a girl’s pictures with others. We were all told to know the warning signs you might be talking to a child predator, to think twice about how our Facebook profiles might impact our future careers, and above all to “be kind online” to one another.
This messaging felt ineffective even then. I knew at 14 that a 60 minute presentation from the police at an assembly wasn’t stop online bullying, but now as an adult I know *why* it wouldn’t stop online bullying: the problem is so much bigger than individuals, especially when many of those individuals children and teens. It’s a systemic problem that requires a systemic solution.
As far as current resources go, I like how “cyber safety” has at least been reframed as digital citizenship. This makes it clear that our online lives are not separate from the other aspects of our lives and puts it in the bigger picture. I reviewed “A Policy Planning Guide for School Divisions and Schools to Implement Citizenship Education from Kindergarten to Grade 12″ (which Katia apparently helped write!) and I think it has some good strategies. However, I have some concerns about the age of the document and how relevant it still is for students. It was published in 2015, nearly ten years ago and the year after I graduated from high school. I’ve seen the huge changes that have occurred within technology since then, and I imagine the educational approaches need to change as well. I hope the Ministry of Education is in the process of updating this document for today’s kids.