The Ontario government is introducing a new sex ed curriculum and some parents are all up in arms about its controversial content!
I am a supporter, a huge supporter of this curriculum. We haven’t had an updated curriclum since 1998, one year before the internet became a mainstream part of our lives. And since the internet took over, things have moved faster than ever.
Over 75% of our teenagers are accessing the internet through their mobile device, on the go. A mobile device with eight gigs of space isn’t big enough to house all of their apps: Instagram, Snapchat, Kik, Facebook, Vine, Tumblr, Pic Collage, Repost, and Trivia Crack. And for some, along with those apps, they’ve got Tinder, Yik Yak, Whisper, and Netflix.
All of their communication tools rest in their hand, sent out with the speedy tap of their thumbs or a swipe of a finger. And they’re sending out a lot:
- teens will send at least 3,000 text messages a month, and that’s on the low end,
- 700 million snaps will be sent on Snapchat today, over 1 billion stories will be viewed,
- 75 million posts will go up on Instagram today alone, and of the 14 young women I interviewed, those posts will only stay up if they garner a preset amount of likes. Otherwise, they’ll be deleted.
I spent an afternoon recently, speaking with approximately 20 different young adults, ranging in age from 18-24. We spoke about their favourite apps: Instagram, Tinder, and Snapchat, their number one.
Snapchat has risen to the top in terms of communicating with friends. Almost half of them will use social media as their main form of communication with each other, that equals a lot of snaps! Snapchat’s pitch is that each snap will disappear after the viewer has viewed it, and each viewing has a minimum allotted amount of time: 1 second, and a maximum amount of time: 10 seconds.
Tinder is an online dating app where you’re matched with people. You view their picture and swipe left if you don’t like them and right if you do. If someone viewed your profile picture and indicated with a simple swipe of their finger that they like you, they get added to your list, and then you can start chatting via the app.
So, I began this post talking about the need for Ontario to introduce their new sex ed curriculum. How did we get talking about Snapchat and Tinder??
Believe it or not, they have a lot in common. Or shall I say, the lack of one has led to the demise of the other.
Over the last 18 months to two years we have witnessed a rise in inappropriate social media use; nude photos are being exchanged and distributed to others, offensive and abusive language on Tinder has become the norm, exchanges include unsolicited crotch shots, and the most baffling of all, Dalhousie’s Facebook scandal.
Boys as young as 13 and 15 have been charged with distribution and possesion of child pornography. It was female friends of those same young boys that thought it was OK to send them nude photos.
Young men with promising hockey careers ahead of them have been suspended from the OHL because of their misogynist comments on Tinder to their female ‘matches’.
Another young man didn’t think his female ‘match’ was responding fast enough to his question so he sent her a nude picture of his lower half and proceeded to attack her with verbal abuse and insults.
I have friends who are constantly bombarded with requests to give oral sex, and send nude photos of themselves to their male ‘matches’ before their online conversations have barely started.
And Dalhousie. Ugh. They posted misogynist content on their Facebook page, content about who they’d
like to hate f**k, who they’d use chloroform on, how they’d use their penis to make the women be “productive members of society”, suggesting explicitly that women belong at home, to cook and clean and look after children.
How did we get there? How did we get to a place where this behavior is OK?
My hope is that with a new sex ed curriculum where issues of consent and respect are taught at a young age, yes a YOUNG AGE!! – because 9 year olds are on Instagram, Snapchat, and Ask.FM! – our children won’t grow up not knowing how to exist online.
We have failed our children if we tell them it’s OK to be on Snapchat, but don’t teach them appropriate online behavior. And we have failed our children if those same children do not learn about issues of consent, because those same issues of consent, and appropriate and inappropriate behavior exist moreso online than they do in real time. Girls don’t walk up to a boy they’re interested in and flash their chest, yet they’ll do it on Snapchat.
Online spaces are public spaces. If you don’t behave inappropriately in real time why do you think it’s OK to do so online?
By not teaching our kids about controling their online identity, we’re failing them.
Teach them about sexual relationships, teach them about consent, teach them about respect, teach them about appropriate behavior, teach them to recognize inappropriate behavior, and teach them how this applies in real time and online.
the new high school hallway 