Keeping up with kids in a wireless world
By Samantha McAleese, research associate at MediaSmarts and
David Fowler, vice-president, marketing and communications at CIRA.
By Samantha McAleese, research associate at MediaSmarts and
David Fowler, vice-president, marketing and communications at CIRA.
A Day in the Life of the Jos is a comprehensive digital citizenship tutorial that prepares students in grades six to eight to deal with all of the issues they face when using digital technology – from online privacy, to cyberbullying, to recognizing what’s real and what’s fake online.
In this lesson, students learn how media influence how we see the world and send intentional and unintentional messages.
It is natural for adolescents to be curious about sex: MediaSmarts’ research suggests that one in six grade 7- 11 students use the Internet to look for information about sexual health. Twenty percent of kids that age look for pornography online, but a third see it without looking for it — and close to half take steps to keep from seeing it.
One of the most important things you can do to raise media-savvy kids is what’s called shared media engagement. That includes listening to their music, watching TV, movies and videos together, getting to know their favourite apps and playing the games they enjoy. It also includes talking to them about their media lives: what they like, what they’re excited about or looking forward to, and what worries or annoys them. While just being with them is an important step, this is also a great opportunity to help your kids think critically about the media they consume, by asking them questions about it and, sometimes, answering back.
Research has found that these things are most likely to be scary to children:
In this lesson, students consider the ways in which social media may prompt them to compare themselves with others, and the impacts that can have on body image and self-esteem. They analyze how the features, algorithms and culture of the social networks they use may affect them and will produce “paper prototypes” of redesigned social media apps that promote more healthful use. Finally, students reflect on how they can change how they use the existing apps to be more like their redesigned versions.
The Internet offers young people important opportunities to socialize with their friends and families as well as to find people who share common interests and communities that can provide emotional support. It is also inevitable that at an age where young people are starting to explore their sexuality offline, they will do so online in these interactive environments as well.
The nature of online sexual exploitation is widely misunderstood: “Instead of pedophiles (ie individuals with sexual interests in children) preying on young children, most Internet-initiated sex crimes involve young adults (mostly men) who target and seduce teenagers into sexual encounters.” Similarly, child sexual abuse material is most frequently produced by victims’ family members, with fathers being the single most common perpetrators. Even in cases of sextortion, 60 percent of youth who are victims know the perpetrators offline.