I speak to a variety of groups; parents groups, educators and administrators, high school students, and university students. And I get the same questions. From parents I get, how do you teach your kids about social media? From high school and university students, the question is, how do I improve my digital presence?
The answer I give to students is almost always the same: we live in a world that is made up of data, so you better make sure yours is good. And then I proceed to tell them how to add good data to their digi-lives: start a LinkedIn account, a Google+ account, tweet mature, appropriate content, remove photos of you half naked and half baked from Instagram (but be aware that someone may have already shared it on their feed). Just put on your online suit and tie, clean yourself up.
The answer I give to parents always leads to more questions: Do you follow them?, Look over their shoulder?, Demand access to their passwords whenever you want? How do you know if they’re behaving? What do you do if they aren’t?
Yes, I follow my kids and/or am a ‘friend’ on Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Vine, Kik, and Tumblr. They know I have the right to access their phone and their account if I chose to do so.
How do I know if they’re behaving? I don’t. I can see what they’ve posted, but I can’t always see (or keep track of) what their friends have said, or how they’ve interacted with their friends. And that’s OK. Because in real time, I have no idea what their conversations are between friends. I am sure they use inappropriate language when they’re with their friends, and they likely access inappropriate content; the proverbial “magazine under the mattress” situation.
But I do know where they are. While I may not be interested in sending a snap, I am familiar with how to do so, I am familiar with the channels in which their lives exist and I am familiar with how they exist.
I don’t let them go out for three hours and have no idea where they are or whom they’re with. So I won’t let them enter a social network and not know “where” they are.
My daughter will be 16 this year, and all she can talk about is getting her driver’s license! I know that first time I allow her to drive, me in the passenger seat, will be nerve-wracking. Part of me doesn’t want her to get behind the wheel. What if she gets in an accident? What if she runs out of gas? What if she gets lost? What if she’s driving her friends home and they’re too loud and she’s distracted and she goes off the road….? What if?
How about, what if I don’t teach her how to appropriately use and be present on social networks? Then what?
Sure, she can learn to drive from a driving instructor – and she will – but if I don’t involve myself in her driver’s education then I will be ignorant to her abilities, and I will remain afraid, likely too nervous to allow her to borrow the car, to pick up her brother, or to drive herself back and forth to work. And that’s not being a responsible parent, in my mind.
The same goes for social media. She learns about emerging social networks from her peers. I could leave it at that. I could forbid her to be on Instagram or Snapchat for fear of what could happen, what she could say, what she could do. But then one day very soon she will grow up and move on to university, and she won’t be under my watchful eye.
Isn’t it better to equip them with the knowledge to navigate this world successfully rather than forbid them to enter it?
What social networks are you on? Challenge yourself to add at least one. Go on, add Snapchat to your phone.
the new high school hallway 