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Summer guide to cybersafety
by Jim McDermott

It's mid-summer!  And where's the typical teen and tween?  Are they in the park playing basketball?  At the beach swimming in the summer sun?  Are they in summer camp hiking through nature's trails?  The answer is yes, yes, and yes.  But they are probably someplace else you didn't expect them.  They are are navigating through their favorite virtual playgrounds by way of their their sidekicks, iphones, and other mobile devices that enable them to be online all day.  And it's time for you to check in on them.

Wow, the child of 2008 really has a new and tangible world to navigate that we didn't: the virtual world.  Today's child has a digital footprint the size of bigfoot (especially compared to us) and their online life is just as important to them as their "real" life.  How do we keep our children safe in this brave new world?  By educating them how to make the right decisions online and by modeling appropriate behavior on the internet.  Yes that means we need to exist in the virtual world so we can see, hear, and participate in the main street of the 21st century.

Online Gaming

Popular Science highlights a real and growing issue around online safety: online gaming addiction.  Online games can be particularly addictive because they represent an alternate reality with new rules and lifelike gameplay.  With amazing grahics and connection to real players whose personalities manifest characters with super-human abilities, massively multiplayer online games (mmos) draw huge crowds of gamers who play for hours.  This new form of entertainment causes alarm because of its power to quickly consume a person's time by trapping them in the virtual world.  Too much of anything is not good and this message needs to be reinforced with gamers who are spending more time in the virtual world than the real world.  Do you know anyone who plays too much?  Summer is a good time to push the kids outside and get them off the gaming consoles.

Cyberbullying

Bullying is not new, but when you add the speed and communication power of technology, it is magnified -- and called cyberbullying.  Stories are emerging all over the country of how kids are using instant messages, social networks, and video sharing sites to intimidate, harass, and destroy lives.  Kids don't realize the power of their words -- nor that what they say and do online is public and that they'll be held accountable for what they say and do.  In School CIO, Terror in the Classroom: What Can Be Done we find an excellent guide to cyberbullying that every educator should read.  Also read this Boston.com article about how schools are grappling with the splash-back from cyberbullying in the classroom.  StopCyberbullying.com is an excellent resource to keep on hand with information for parents, children, and educators.

Online Predators

Fortunately the danger of online predators has been in the spotlight thanks to shows like To Catch a Predator from Dateline.  Technology enables some pretty bad connections like that between a predator and a child.  Here again education is our children's best defense.  Wiredsafety.org has an excellent resource to help teach kids how to spot danger, stop communicating, and tell an adult.  A friend just sent this YouTube video also which spells out a typical scenario any child can encounter. 

So while the sun is shining, let's stay involved in our children's online life and help keep them safe by educating them how to make the right decisions online and by modeling appropriate behavior on the internet.