Gone in Sixty Seconds: The Sociology of Snapchat

Submitted by Matthew Johnson on 15 Oct 2013.

Snapchat, the mobile app that lets users send “self-destructing” photos, has the distinction of being the only digital tool that does not have a single redeeming feature. While the moral panic associated with blogs, cell phones, social networks and online games has largely faded in grudging recognition of their more positive uses (indeed, research shows that many parents have actually helped their children lie about their age register for Facebook accounts), Snapchat is seen as the Q-tip of the digital age: its sole function is to do the thing that you’re warned not to do on the box.

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Cell Phones and Texting, Internet & Mobile, Parents, Privacy, Social Networking

What Students Need to Know about Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy (Grade 5) - Lesson

The Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario has created three guides for teachers that help increase the understanding of open government and personal privacy. What Students Need to Know About Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy has been created to provide an opportunity for teachers and their students to discuss why access to government-held information and personal privacy are important public values and how these values are reflected in our relationships with governments.

English

What Students Need to Know About Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy (Grades 11-12) - Lesson

The Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario has created three guides for teachers that help increase the understanding of open government and personal privacy. What Students Need to Know About Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy has been created to provide an opportunity for teachers and their students to discuss why access to government-held information and personal privacy are important public values and how these values are reflected in our relationships with governments.

English

Constant surveillance: Youth privacy in a digital age

Submitted by Matthew Johnson on 06 Nov 2012.

Despite what many adults believe privacy matters to youth. More and more, though, youth are finding that their actions online are monitored – by parents, teachers, and corporations. A high school principal creates a fake Facebook profile page and adds over 300 of her school’s students as friends; a Texas middle-school plans to introduce ID cards with microchips that its students will be required to carry at all times; an Indiana high school student is expelled after a profane tweet (sent in the middle of the night from the student’s home computer) alerts his school’s monitoring system.

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Privacy

Privacy matters for Media Literacy Week 2012!

Submitted by MediaSmarts on 02 Nov 2012.

Young people today spend large amounts of time sharing parts of their personal lives online playing games, “checking in” with geolocation apps, posting photos and catching up with friends through social media. But despite this openness, privacy does indeed matter to youth, especially with their online actions being increasingly monitored by parents, educators, and corporations.

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Privacy

The Internet, surveillance, and privacy

Information privacy is an important policy and social consideration.

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Advertising, marketing, and consumerism and children/youth online

Children and youth are a huge potential market for corporations.

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Types of surveillance

Children and youth who use the Internet are highly attuned to surveillance practices. [1] Research conducted by MediaSmarts demonstrates that for young Canadians surveillance is part of everyday life. While youth once considered the Internet to be a private space where they and their peers could play, communicate, and experiment, these attitudes have largely disappeared: on the contrary, youth now regard the Internet as a completely monitored space. [2] This surveillance of youth is primarily conducted by parents, teachers/schools, and corporations.

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Surveillance: Why worry, if you’ve got nothing to hide?

The word surveillance comes from the French verb “surveiller”, which, when translated, means “to watch over”. [1] Sociologist and surveillance scholar David Lyon defines surveillance as “any collection and processing of personal data, whether identifiable or not, for the purposes of influencing or managing those whose data have been garnered”. [2] Increasingly, information gathering and surveillance technologies are becoming more and more common as part of everyday life and routines. [3]

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