Young people confident about online safety
This morning I got a fascinating insight into how young people perceive online safety issues when I took part in a discussion on shmuFM’s Youth Radio Project.
This is the fourth time I’ve been invited on to their show. It’s surprisingly good fun. The questions are always very rudimentary, but that’s because the 12 to 18-year-old presenters are inexperienced. So, that’s fine.
But the interest comes when we develop the conversation. For example, the four young people in the studio seemed to be so blase about the issues of their online personal safety (compared to the fear that many adults and parents have about young people surfing unrestricted online).
The four young people, age ranging from 13 to 17, spend between 30 mins and 6 hours a day online. Much of this is on Facebook. But a large amount of that time is in online chat, like MSN. In that time they regularly encounter people they don’t know who attempt to engage them in conversation. They just accept it as part of the experience and appeared confident they knew how to deal with such situations.
This reminds me of some research I did six months ago in which I discussed online safety with a group of young people. All of them said they were approached (online) by people claiming to be young people who wanted to engage in chat. It’s possible on these services to block unwanted people from conversations and profile interactions, and that was the approach adopted by the young people I interviewed.
However, some said they knew people, often girls, who enjoyed the attention. Also, they told me they usually didn’t tell their parents because:
- They were afraid of their parents’ reactions
- They didn’t want parents nosing around their internet activities
- They feared parental restrictions on their access to the internet
- They didn’t know whether the person contacting them was genuine and didn’t want to be nasty to them, just in case
The message here? Young people are often more sophisticated than we realise and they often talk among themselves and develop their own, adequate techniques for dealing with dangers. But while most young people get through life with a few scrapes and scratches, there are plenty who don’t. These vulnerable people have to be protected. And as adults we have to be vigilant.
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