Communicating Safely Online: Tip Sheet for Parents and Trusted Adults
Most of the time, young people use digital tools like smartphones and platforms or games and social networks to communicate with friends and family. Teens may also use online spaces to find support, community and mentorship. All of these are healthy ways to use technology, but it’s important for them to know that some online relationships are unhealthy.Communicating Safely Online: Tip Sheet for Youth
For most of us, digital devices like phones, tablets and computers are a big part of how we keep in touch with our friends and families. It’s important to know that some relationships we have online may not be good for us.Help! Someone shared a photo of me without my consent! – Tip Sheet
- You can start by asking the person who shared it to take it down or stop sharing it. Kids report that this works more often than not!
- Ask the service or platform where it was shared to take it down. If you’re under 18, they may be required by law to take it down, and most also have a policy of taking down any photos that were shared without the subject’s permission.
Sexuality and Romantic Relationships in the Digital Age
There’s a long-standing relationship between sex and the Internet. As far as back the 1980s, Usenet and local bulletin board systems were used to share pornographic text files and crude (in both senses) graphics, and people have been using digital media to form and carry out online relationships at least as long. However, just as estimates of how much online traffic and content is made up of sexual material tend to be exaggerated[1], our new report – Sexuality and Romantic Relationships in the Digital Age – from MediaSmarts’ Young Canadians in a Wired World survey of 5,436 students, shows that for Canadian youth, sexuality and romantic relationships play a fairly small part of their online lives.
