New Online Safety Report Provides Advice for Parents and Educators

Time to skip the scare tactics.

To be frank, it is the method most often chosen when working with young people. Take the worst-case scenarios and then use them to scare the bejesus out of our kids.

It has been utilized for years to try to keep our youth from using alcohol, tobacco, and harder drugs. It is also used all too frequently when discussing sexual activities including the risk of HIV.

And all too often it has been used to try to dissuade our youngsters from using social networking sites.

Unfortunately, the scare tactic approach has not proven to have the impact adults would like it to have. Not too surprisingly, a new report reveals that using similar tactics when discussing online safety is not the way to go either.

The Online Safety and Technology Working Group (OSTWG), a federal entity created by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, recently released an online safety report (pdf) that provided specific recommendations for students, teachers, and parents. Instead of making students fearful about the perils of the internet or blocking such access altogether, the report encourages a broad approach to online safety that features both media literacy and digital citizenship.

Safety a Legitimate Issue

Referring to the Internet as a “living thing,” the task force did not minimize the importance of internet safety for our youngsters. But their report did indicate that scare tactics did little to influence the behavior of adolescents.

As expected, research indicates that both preteens and teenagers spend a significant portion of their waking hours on tech-based communication forms including interacting on social networking sites. Such interactions provide one of the greatest fears for many adults, that a child will fall victim to an online predator.

Those adult fears often lead directly to our use of scare tactics to try to keep our youngsters from using these sites. But, according to the researchers, recent studies have shown, “the statistical probability of a young person being physically assaulted by an adult who they first met online is extremely low.”

That finding is consistent with a 2008 report that appeared in American Psychologists indicating that young people’s use of social networking sites did not increase their risk of victimization. Furthermore, while “sexual predation on minors by adults, both online and offline, remains a concern, bullying and harassment, most often by peers, are the most frequent threats that minors face, both online and offline.”

Yet another common concern is the growing issue of sexting and the latest trend of sharing explicit photos. Unclear as how to handle such behavior, many communities have allowed local police to handle the matter with a heavy-handed, punishment-oriented approach. Those few, highly-publicized situations have provided yet another rationale for using scare tactics with our youngsters.

The report discourages such an approach, insisting that a united effort that takes advantage of the protective tools offered, but works in collaboration with parents and school personnel, is the best way to proceed. Furthermore, the task force insists that schools can safely incorporate the use of social networking sites into the classroom.

Education Critical

The educational approach should feature programs that model the appropriate use of technology and the sites frequented by our youngsters. In other words, instead of using horror stories and focusing on negative behavior, adults must model positive and productive use. To ensure the approach is effective, that modeling must come from all adult caregivers and not just educators.

From the report:

“Because the Internet is increasingly user-driven, with its “content” changing in real-time, users are increasingly stakeholders in their own well-being online. Their own behavior online can lead to a full range of experiences, from positive ones to victimization, pointing to the increasingly important role of safety education for children as well as their caregivers. The focus of future task forces therefore needs to be as much on protective education as on protective technology.”

As for the greatest threats children face online, the report indicates that cyber bullying is far more common than most people believe. The latest form of bullying begins as early as second grade and generally is initiated most often by a students classmates or peer group.

One interesting development of the report was the rather novice suggestion of looking to young people as experts in online tech usage to help guide adults in developing a set of best educational practices.

For more, read the full report (pdf).