Keeping Kids Safe in Cyberspace

Last week we had a guest speaker come to talk to our students about social media and internet safety.  Jesse Miller (mediatedreality.com) spoke to the grade 4/5's and then the 6/7's, each for an hour.  In the evening, he spoke to about 60 parents.  His main message was that we can use social media to make the world a better place, but often is it just a distraction and a waste of time, not to mention potentially  dangerous.  When Mr. Miller arrived at our school he took a photo of his shoe to get our longitude and latitude.  From there, he was able to cross-reference several apps on his phone and "found" 10 of our students' profiles, some very open, some with very disturbing text and images.  He could tell where some of them lived, and even found pictures taken at our school, in our classrooms, posted and with students tagged. 

Here are some other things we learned:

• Thirteen is the age a person is supposed to be to join Facebook.
• There are 90,000,000 children under the age of 13 who have a Facebook account.
• Most of our intermediate students said they have a Facebook account and their "fake" ages ranged widely.
• Privacy settings don't really work as words and pictures can be passed around like the game of "Telephone."  Don't put anything online that you would not want your mother or your boss to see.
• Four young girls in Ontario were recently fooled into meeting a middle-aged man, who online, was claiming to be Justin Beiber.  He sexually assaulted them.
• How do you value friendships?  Write down the names of your friends on a piece of paper.  Only those people should be your friends on Facebook.  Get rid of the rest.  Do you really want friends who only remember your birthday because Facebook reminded them?
• You are the most important thing in the world to your parents - Share your passwords and accounts with them.
• Would you spend a dollar a day to use Twitter, Facebook or Instagram?
• Photos on Snapchat DO NOT disappear forever.
• Followers:  Would you think it would be creepy for a 40 year old man to be following an 11 year old girl on the street?  Why is it not creepy on Instagram or Twitter?  Get rid of followers you don't know.  They can find out your name, where you go to school, where you live, etc.
• Be a friend to your friends in real life.
• Do you sleep with your phone?  Might it be interfering with your sleep?  Get an alarm clock!
• Think of your favourite sport, and playing hard when it really matters.  Would you do that with a phone in your hand?  Pay attention to what really matters.
• A student in the US lost an opportunity to have a $75,000 scholarship because he tweeted racist remarks. Others have lost their lives and bankrupted their families, texting while driving.  Again - pay attention to what matters.

We thank the District Parent Advisory Committee for funding Jesse Miller's parent presentation.