by Mary Esselman

Back in ninth grade, my friend Kathy and I shared a notebook we called “Rhoda” (probably in some goofy homage to “The Mary Tyler Moore Show). In Rhoda we’d record our observations about classmates and teachers; our outrage or hurt or wild enthusiasm over whatever seemed absolutely urgent at the time; our doodles and dirty pictures and bad words and everything we were pretty naïve about and scared to say out loud.

Our biggest fear back then? That we’d slip up and leave Rhoda where our parents could find it–or worse, that we’d let Rhoda fall into the hands of our classmates, who then would be privy to our most secret, dumb, mean, profound, innocent thoughts.

What did we know? We were kids trying to fit into and comprehend the jungle that was junior high. We were social networking primates, using a clunky notebook and thick pens to relay our raw emotions and the minutiae of our day. Now, of course kids use text messages, Twitter, Facebook, You Tube, and other tech-evolved tools to communicate the same things.

But the difference is that their high-tech “Rhoda” communiqués are out there in cyberspace, potentially exposed for all to see. Sure, a kid today may think his/her text message is going to one specific friend, but that friend can forward the message to the entire school, if he/she so desires. A girl may send a photo to her boyfriend, and that photo can wind up on the Web, or on the wireless phones of any number of strangers. A young teacher may post personal information online, never dreaming that a potential employer, student, or parent of a student could access that material.

How can we “grown-ups,” prone to impulsive behavior ourselves, help our children/students understand that what they post online now will have ramifications later? What do we adults need to learn about the benefits and risks of our kids’ current online activity? How can we help our children (and ourselves) learn to behave responsibly now, today, every time they (or we) engage in digital communication?

In this issue of bNetS@vvy we try to help you find the answers. In our From the Experts section, Generation Y expert Anastasia Goodstein offers pointers on how to become a tech-savvy, ethical guide for the young “digital natives” in your life. Our Teacher’s Desk article features the Internet safety advice of Principal Conn McCartan, whose school recently made news when administrators disciplined thirteen students for drinking alcohol—a school violation that was captured in photos posted on social networking sites.

At the Parents’ Corner we ask, “How do everyday parents keep their kids (and themselves) mindful of the future consequences of online/wireless activity? “ Three different parents share their experiences and strategies.

And in Youth Voices, fifteen-year-old Grace Muth reveals that despite having 500 Facebook friends, she knows how to protect her online reputation.

Thanks for reading, and let us know about your tips/strategies for responsible online activity. We’re always looking for new contributors to bNetS@vvy, and we invite you to share your stories with us by emailing internetsafety@nea.org. Together we can help young teens make the most of technology – more safely.

Mary Esselman is the Editor-In Chief of the bNetS@vvy eNewsletter

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Future Consequences of Current Online Activity

Youth Voices 500 Facebook Friends: Is My Reputation In My Hands Anymore?

by Grace Muth, 15, Charlottesville, VA

“You look naked!”

“Mom, I don’t look naked… I’m just wearing a strapless dress.”

“But people won’t know that! You look like you’re topless! Please, just crop it.”

“People won’t notice, and if they do, they won’t care!”

“Do you really want people looking at you thinking you might be topless? Think about it.”

“Ok, fine. I’ll crop it.”

When I post a picture of myself onto Facebook (FB), a social networking site that allows you to connect, chat to, and find friends online, I’m not imagining about what my boss twenty years down the road will think of it. But the truth is, this picture that I could delete from my online album later on if I wanted, has been viewed by at least twenty of my friends, shown to parents, grandparents, and friends of friends. So even though this picture from a pool party last summer that was deemed inappropriate by my parents may seem to have disappeared from online history, the number of people that have access to this picture is much larger than I would have imagined. Access to pictures and information on Facebook is an ongoing topic of conversation in my house.

I am fifteen, in tenth grade, and I attend a boarding school in New Hampshire. Because I was leaving friends and family at home, I wanted an FB profile to be able to keep in contact with them, and to easily communicate with friends at my new school, but my mother was very wary of the idea. We came to an agreement that she would create a profile for herself, and we would be “friends” on FB; therefore she would have access to look at all of my posted pictures, my conversations with all of my other friends, and information into my school, my email, and what I am doing on any given day, and I would be able to have a FB page. This compromise has worked very well, but on occasion, she tells me if something is inappropriate, and our agreement is that to keep my page, I have to change it. While I may not agree with some of the stuff she says about my photos and posts, I do appreciate that she cares enough to want to monitor my internet life. Most of my friends’ parents do not have their own FB profiles. This means that the parents do not have oversight over their kid’s profiles and while it would be nice to think that preteens and teenagers, when given complete freedom in this respect, would have enough responsibility to not put up questionable material on their profiles, I have seen pictures of alcohol, drug use, nudity, sexuality, and read long strings of profanity on “walls,” where other people can write messages on one’s profile that everyone can see. Because we’re young, we are trying new things, pushing boundaries, and making mistakes. It used to be that if you make a lapse in judgment, five of your close friends would know, and that would be it. Even if they each told three people, fifteen people would know. But now, if one starts talking about drinking at a party on FB, soon, far more than fifteen people will know your secret.

Through school, camps, clubs, etc. I have five hundred friends on Facebook. All these five hundred people have access to my page, and also, if my privacy settings aren’t strong enough, everyone in my networks have access to look at my pictures and all of my friends, and everything I write on my wall. If I am in the network of my hometown, an additional 47,000 people can look at my profile. And if I am part of my school network, another seven hundred people can look at whatever I post. Added up, 48,200 people can have immediate access. This is only the beginning. If each those 48,200 people have five hundred friends, your picture of playing beer pong and downing a shot at a party cannot be taken back. And what’s worse, friends can take pictures, and put them up on their pages. So it leaves one to ask, “is my reputation in my hands anymore?”

We are a celebrity-obsessed society, and letting possibly millions of people get access to our personal details makes us feel a little famous, but we could end up like Vanessa Hudgens or Miley Cyrus, with our nude or drunk pictures just a click away on Google. With the possibility of millions of people seeing us doing something that normally, and should be, kept undercover, how can we fight against it? This viral spread of news, pictures and videos is what huge networking sites like Myspace, Xanga, Facebook feed off of, and it is how YouTube has gotten so popular.

I have had classmates that have completely lost their reputations, by sending nude photos to boyfriends, and those boys in turn sending them to the whole grade. My dad is a college admissions officer for a great university, and per our agreement, he occasionally makes me give him a tour of Facebook, looking for questionable material. He also searches through my friends, making sure I know who they all are, and I know he will mentally note who has been labeled, “most likely to smoke up a joint and get caught” on their profile when he looks at their application. People get kicked out of school for having pictures of illegal activities posted. Girls are thought to be “easy” when they have sexual material for everyone to see, and not only do others lose respect for them, they lose respect for themselves. And the problems is, their parents have no idea.

So what can you do to make sure that your child doesn’t get swept up in the new fad of posting everything of their lives onto their profiles and then suddenly, almost without realizing it, having their reputation tarnished forever?

1) Ask them about their privacy settings, and make sure that only friends can view the page, the wall, and photos.

2) Ask to see their photos, look what they are writing on their friends’ walls, and discuss with them about what you believe to be appropriate and what’s not.

3) If you think it’s necessary, ask your child for their password, or you can make an account of your own to look at what they’re doing. You can do this with any networking site, not just Facebook.

4) And with all this texting, online social networking, and instant messaging, I advise going back to an archaic form of communication: talking. Talk with your child or students about what is safe material to put up on the World Wide Web, and help them understand that not just their friends are looking at their profiles.

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From The Experts

By Anastasia Goodstein

Every time a generation of young people embraces a new form of media, our society tends to panic. We panicked over girls reading novels in the 18th century. We panicked over what teens would be doing in the darkness of movie houses, and over comic books and Elvis’s swiveling hips. We worried that television would rot children’s brains. Today many parents and educators are panicked about what young people are doing online. Take a deep breath. Now exhale. They’re doing what young people have always done — hanging out, socializing, and experimenting with identity. They’re just doing it digitally.

Educator Marc Prensky coined the term “digital natives” to describe this generation that has grown up with the Internet. I like the analogy of natives and immigrants because it illustrates how young people and adults tend to view technology differently. While young people are literally living a huge chunk of their lives online and tend to be intuitive users, many adults still mostly use the Internet for functional reasons. We send email, pay our bills or book our travel while young people are gossiping, breaking up, making up and sending messages to each other 24/7. If something breaks on the computer, they figure out how to fix it. Many of us still need a manual.

Still, growing up with the Internet and increasingly with wireless phones at younger ages, presents new challenges. Young people may be doing what they’ve always done, but the nature of technology is what’s different. Here’s how:

It’s public. We used to write in our diaries, hiding them away in a drawer or under lock and key. This generation grew up watching reality TV and seeing “celebrities” like Paris Hilton become more famous after her sex tape hit the Internet. They are, on the whole, more comfortable sharing their lives online and are less freaked out than we are about the risqué photos and party exploits they post. At the same time, many young people just don’t realize the public nature of the Internet. They don’t actively manage their privacy settings and assume that what they post in a Facebook profile is private – or just for their friends, until an ex-friend or boyfriend or girlfriend right-clicks, copies and pastes that “private” photo everywhere. When a young person creates a MySpace profile dedicated to making fun of another student or posts a fight video on YouTube, they are doing this in a virtual public square for the world to see. Instead of a trip to the principal’s office, young people are now being expelled, arrested or sued.

It’s viral. We’ve all seen how funny YouTube videos featuring laughing babies or cute animals get passed around the Internet to millions of people. What used to be the nasty note or juicy gossip overheard in the girls’ room is now a text message, wall post or bulletin, spreading much faster through social networks containing thousands of friends creating drama for teens, parents and educators. It’s the “telephone game” on steroids. The Internet also amplifies certain offline issues when young people are able to find groups that reinforce self-destructive behaviors, like cutting, eating disorders or suicidal tendencies.

What you post is permanent. At one of my talks, an engineer from Google attended and told me that nothing can be truly removed from the Internet. I’m not an engineer, but when something has spread online virally, it’s almost impossible to delete. Again, I think this scares adults more than young people, but until they are the college recruiters or HR managers, we should remind them of this reality.

You can be anonymous. Anonymity can be both a blessing and curse online. On the one hand, it allows people to share very personal experiences and struggles and connect with others around these issues in a space made safe by anonymity. On the other hand, young people and adults can be a lot meaner when they’re commenting anonymously or under a false identity. Even when people are not posting anonymously or under a pseudonym, technology creates a sense of distance in our communication — it’s easier to say something you wouldn’t say in person, flirt and/or be crueler. You can’t physically see the person you’re communicating with or feel the emotions you get from looking at them.

Parents and educators need to do what parents and educators do best: guide young people in how to use the technology they are growing up with, both ethically and appropriately. You don’t need to be an engineer to do it. Here are my tips for becoming a totally wired parent or educator:

Survey your teens: Find out where they go online, what they like to do & how they use their phones.

Join a social network: Learn to use the tools teens are using every day to communicate.

Lean on them: Not a computer wiz? No IT tech support? Identify a teen who is and let them help you in class or to create a profile. It’s empowering and validating.

Be their guide: Help them learn to evaluate and find credible Internet sources. Help them become “information literate.”

Talk about appropriate use and ethics: Teach them not to take hidden camera photos of their friends, explain what’s appropriate to post in a public forum and why. Explain what plagiarism is and why copying and pasting from Wikipedia into a paper is not ok.

Keep the lines of communication open. Encourage them to tell you when something bad happens. Promise you won’t “take the Internet or wireless phone away.”

Encourage them to report sexual predators or cyberbullies in the communities they spend time on and to keep an eye out for each other. (See the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s online reporting system at http://www.cybertipline.org)

Teach reputation management: Have teens Google themselves, encourage them to maintain a portfolio site and to post thoughtful comments under their real names. This way when people search for them, the positive content they’ve posted will rise to the top. Talk to them about actively managing their privacy settings and about creating appropriate IM and email identities.

Anastasia Goodstein is the founder and editor of Ypulse.com and the author of Totally Wired: What Teens And Tweens Are Really Doing Online (St. Martin’s Griffin 2007

Teachers’ Desk Educators, Parents, and Kids Online: A Principal’s Advice for Responsible Behavior

By Conn McCartan

How Educators Can Help Students Manage Online/Wireless Activity

A framework that I believe will serve educators, parents and students well is to apply whatever standards they use for “offline” interactions to their “online” interactions. Using that line of thinking, I would suggest these tips.

1) Don’t assume the role of “online” police as an educator. You do not police students’ social interactions outside of school when they are hanging out at the mall; why do you want to do it in the online environment? The ease with which we can peer into the electronic world of our young people can be intriguing, but we really should not take on that responsibility.

2) Do offer an adult perspective on online behavior. We offer advice for how students should act in public. We hope they follow this advice. The same can be said for online interactions. Help young people see how their online interactions form a permanent record that can be shared with thousands of people in a short amount of time. Ask students to examine the kinds of statements, pictures and videos they are putting out into the world. Remind them that the electronic environment is far from private. Let them know about the obligations you have as an educator if you are given documentation of activity that is against school rules or codes of conduct they must follow as members of school groups. Students may say or do things in private that they wouldn’t want their parents to know about. If they do these things electronically, someone can show their parents exactly what they said or did! A helpful resource for educators: http://www.netsmartz.org/education/training.html

How Educators Can Manage Their Own Online/Wireless Activity

We have spoken to our staff about using the same guidelines for social networking interactions with students that they would use for face-to-face interactions with students. While we do not want to infringe upon speech rights, we have told them that professional guidelines would direct them to limit their electronic interactions with students to academic sites rather than social sites. Facebook and My Space are social networking sites, and students see them that way. There are several options available to teachers to create class pages for the sole purpose of academic exchange. Teachers in our school use “Moodle” (http://www.moodle.org) to create forums for students to connect with the teachers for academic exchange. As a school system, we can control the content and security of these sites. You don’t have that with social networking sites.

How Parents Can Help Kids Understand the Consequences of Their Online/Wireless Behavior

1. Talk to your children about the fact that social networking sites are not private. Young people must understand that whatever they say or show online is more like saying it over the PA at school than like whispering it to a friend at lunch.
2. Talk to your children about the permanence of items on social networking sites. You can take words you regret back in a conversation. With online interactions, anyone can go back and grab the exact words/images. They are “on the record” once you type them up and hit “send.”
3. Keep the computers in your home out of your child’s bedroom. Put them in a place where you can monitor what your children are doing, saying and posting online.
4. Establish time limits for social computer use just as you would for TV viewing. Online social interaction can suck up a lot of a young person’s time!
5. Insist on having the passwords and access to your child’s online pages. This isn’t his/her diary! It’s not private! You should be able to see what your child is putting out for the rest of the world to see. Establish a consequence if you discover that your child has created an “underground” online presence you didn’t know about!
6. Learn about social networking sites. There are so many positive qualities about them that can be a real benefit to you as an adult and as a parent. It is even OK if you end up having your own social networking site!

Conn McCartan is entering his fifth year as principal of Eden Prairie High School, the largest high school in Minnesota. McCartan has been a principal for twelve years, and has been in education for 26 years. Last year, Eden Prairie High School made news when administrators punished thirteen students for drinking alcohol—a school violation that was captured in photos posted on social networking sites.

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From the Parents Corner

How do everyday parents manage to keep their kids (and themselves) mindful of the future consequences of their current online/wireless activity? We asked several parents to share their experiences and strategies with us

The Parents:

Christi Huling, Centreville, VA (Mother of Carson and Cole)

Tom Esselman, Kansas City, KS (Father of Andrew, Danny, Amy and Michael)

Michael Hochberger, New York City, NY (Father of Jacob and Eric)

The Questions and Answers

1) Have you had any personal experiences with unwanted/unexpected consequences as a result of your child’s online/wireless activity? If so, how did you find out, what did you do, and what were the results?

Christi: My 13 year old has not yet encountered any of the above. However, I have read some emails/texts that she had sent out and then later regretted. She does not know it, but I monitor her MySpace page and her cell phone texting and there have been several occasions when she sends an email/text that she is sorry for, something she had sent to the person earlier. I am not sure if she has changed her behavior as a result of this though.

Tom: No, there have been no consequences such as the ones you’ve mentioned above in any way. There have been some websites with inappropriate content visited by my children. In most cases it has been easy to discover those sites, and to discuss with the children why they don’t meet our approval, and to remove their content and access from the PC or laptop. This has been effective because we did not castigate the kids or demean them because of their choices; but rather discussed openly the value in choosing based on principles that matter. With regard to wireless activity, it is regular and constant, and has enabled my kids to always feel connected to us and to each other. There was one incident where we discovered inappropriate text messages being exchanged between our son and one of his girlfriends. Again, openly discussing its reflection of poor choice was the best way to deal with it.

Michael: None that I can remember.*Ed note: see Michael’s response to question #6

2) What about the “good news”—have you found benefits from your child’s online/wireless activity?

Christi: I wouldn’t say that we have experienced any beneficial consequences on my daughter’s end – however, I find many benefits in being able to send/receive text messages from her. It makes it easy to communicate with her when she is not at home or not with me. We text message daily and she doesn’t hesitate to text me at work when it may be hard to get me by phone.

Tom: At any time, and on regular occasions the children use the Internet to search topics, investigate new opportunities and discover new sources of information for their school projects and social activities. Teachers in their schools are candid and encouraging of their use of their online and wireless activity for the purpose of staying connected and accessing information quickly.

Michael: Social benefits for sure. Many of his assignments are accessible online. His Chinese pronunciation lessons are on a Website which he has to access.

3) How would you describe the level of communication between you and your child about online/wireless activities?

Christi: I believe that my daughter and I have a shared understanding of online behavior. I have spoken with her openly about inappropriate websites and about using search engines (i.e., Google) and how they can bring you to websites that you don’t expect. I have told her about the possible ramifications of communicating with people you don’t know on MySpace or in chat rooms. I have gone overboard in an attempt to “scare” her or give her the worst-case scenarios on what could happen if you communicate with the wrong people.

Tom: We have not made this a topic of discussion. Cell phones have become a way to stay constantly connected. When we’re all at home, there are some instances, mainly around a meal or discussion, when we point out to the kids that their constant focus on their phone and the constant pace of texting is distracting and disrespectful. We have never turned it into hard and fast rules, but occasionally we discuss the possibility of doing so. Normally, though, it is not an issue.

Michael: I monitor their on-line activity via AOL. So I’m able to see how much IMing and with whom they are IMIng as well as which Websites they go to. Our 10-year old has controls that monitor where he can go on the Web (the teen level of control). Our 13-year old has no restrictions imposed by AOL. Their e-mail addresses are on AOL. We have warned them repeatedly about predators and other unseemly folk that troll the web. We have told them to never give their phone number, name and address to any site that asks unless we approve. They know how to log on to the web outside of AOL and go straight to Explorer so I don’t necessarily know if they are going to inappropriate sites. That said, they like to IM so much that I think they normally go on AOL. I will come into their room and ask with whom are they IMing. They have to provide an answer or they can’t go on. I feel relatively comfortable with the level of communication with my children on this subject.

4) Do you model good online/wireless behavior for your children? Have you personally or professionally experienced unwanted/unexpected consequences as a result of online/wireless activity?

Christi: For the most part I believe that I model good online behavior – but there are times when I send text messages or emails at inappropriate times. If I am in the car driving and have the need to read or send an email or text message, I give the device to one of my kids to read to me or write for me. I do talk on the phone while driving – which is a behavior I will not condone when my children are old enough to drive. I have had a minor consequence at work using email when I accidentally sent an email to an unintended person. Fortunately, it was harmless, although a little embarrassing! I do have colleagues that have done the same thing with more harmful results. I have also had an employee terminated for downloading inappropriate software to his work computer. When instances such as these have occurred I have shared them (to some extent) with my daughter so she is aware of what could happen if you are not careful. I have also stressed to her that anything you put in writing either on line or via text messaging can be shared and forwarded on so that many people will see it even if you don’t want them to.

Tom: I find it distracting and off-putting when a colleague engages in texting during the middle of a conversation or meeting. I find it less distracting if the person receives a phone call and asks permission to take it due to need. For the most part, using a Blackberry to keep up with emails, phone and text messages has been extremely helpful at work and away from the office.

Michael: I have had some unexpected consequences of my own wireless behavior. I don’t however text at the dinner table and rarely at social occasions. No unwanted/unexpected consequences at work.

5) What concerns or confuses you most about your child’s current online/wireless activity? And what as a parent, do you feel you can do about it?

Christi: “Cyberbullying” is probably my greatest concern with online activity. I am not necessarily confused about any of the online activity – I try to stay abreast of the features that people utilize either on line or on their cell phones. I think that if you monitor what your child is doing (with or without them knowing) that you can determine if anything is getting out of hand and can take the proper steps to rectify it. It is scary that children can access computers from other locations outside of your own home where you have little or no control.

Tom: There’s very little that worries me about their online and wireless activity. In many ways this behavior is reflective of how the world is changing, and it often gives evidence about what types of information, activity and behavior will define the world our kids occupy as adults. Beyond that, it allows our children to feel much greater levels of connection to people and topics all over the world. I’m often times shocked by how few of my own friends from high school or college I maintain connection with. By contrast, it seems hard to imagine that our kids’ friendships won’t be much longer lasting due to the constant ability to stay connected with them.

Michael: I believe that we are dealing with two moving targets. The technology is constantly evolving, and our kids are getting older. As soon as they get to a stage in their lives where we understand what they may want and be interested in on the Web, then they get older and their interests change and their surfing/IM/e-mail patterns change. In addition, technology itself changes. Facebook comes out with a new interface and a way to communicate and all of a sudden everything changes. Constantly monitoring the technology and how they may want to use/abuse it is my biggest worry. My children’s texting habits haven’t yet reached astronomic proportions so that is not yet a problem.

6) Anything else you want add? Any advice for other parents?

Christi: My advice is to make sure you have open communication with the parents of your child’s friends. There have been several occasions when I have found interesting information either in text messages or emails that pertained to or included my daughter’s friends and since I have a good rapport with the parents I was able to “alert” them and we worked together on the issue! I am also a huge proponent of reading the text messages and emails and frequently visiting the MySpace or Facebook page to look for inappropriate behavior and to nip it in the bud!

Tom: Utilize online and wireless activity to learn about what excites and motivates your children. Guide them through your own behavior to take advantage of the multitudes of benefits that online and wireless access to all kinds of information can provide.

Michael: Never say never — you will not believe what just happened given the timing of your survey. Jacob was in the Apple Store last week and checked his e-mail on his AOL account. He left the account open and so anyone in the store who picked up that Ipod was able to access his e-mail account and send e-mails to responding to any e-mails in his in box. One was sent to a teacher saying “I like staring at your a**.”

[Ed. Note: Michael added the following a day after his initial responses to our questions]

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