News for the Week of August 26, 2007
In youth-tech news this week, strategies for coping with cyberbullying — whether you're a parent, student or educator...
'eBullies': Coping with cyberbullying
Cyberbullying continues to plague students across the country. In Texas, a student "posted a page that he attributed to a classmate, complete with the girl's picture and numerous photos of her alleged sex partners. Other students ... were invited to view the page," the Detroit News reports. Within two days 100 students had posted comments on the page. "The boy eventually was suspended for a few days ... and the victim transferred schools because she was so distraught." The victim was hesitant to tell her parents, worried she'd lose her online privileges (a fairly common reaction, research shows). The Cleveland Plain Dealer has some at-a-glance statistics on bullying, though the first one — 3 in 4 students say they've been cyberbullied — is high (the Pew Internet & American Life's latest study on this puts it at close to one-third).
Advice for parents
A book by two social workers cited by the Detroit News points to "the importance of parents getting kids to feel comfortable talking about their Internet time," offering us this advice: "Start with nonforced, nonjudgmental questions about their online experiences, ideally in a casual setting, they say, such as when you're shopping for back-to-school clothes or walking the dog together. Even if the child seems bored or annoyed, he or she actually may want to talk about it. Then listen."
Advice for students
Codes of conduct for social networking are naturally developing in peer groups, in school social scenes, and all over the social Web. Here's a blogger on Facebook etiquette who's encouraging a discussion on her page. Tips (based on a Wired piece) include "poke with moderation and caution" and don't "friend another whom [you] have no association with whatsoever."
Advice for educators
There's a new set of courses aimed at educators and parents at BullyingCourse.com from Canadian educator Bill Belsey, creator of the award-winning Bullying.org (geared toward young people) and "the world's first Web site about cyberbullying," Cyberbullying.ca. Says Bill: "Bullying is a completely universal issue that touches almost every person, family, school, business or community at one time or another regardless of age, gender, race, religion or socio-economic status. Bullying is not only a 'school' issue, bullying is a broader community health and wellness issue." In the US, Nancy Willard's book Cyberbullying and Cyberthreats has a section on legal considerations for schools.
In other news...
- Teen hackers mostly good. A lot of teens do some hacking, and though their intentions aren't malicious, their hacks are illegal, USA TODAY reports. Covering a report by psychologist Shirley McGuire at the American Psychological Association conference, the article says "a large minority of teenagers commit computer crimes such as hacking and software piracy, but it's done mostly out of curiosity and a hunger for excitement rather than wanting to cause trouble." McGuire found in a survey of some 4,800 San Diego-area high school students that 38% had copied software without permission; 18% went into someone's computer or Web site without permission, 16% had taken material from it; and 13% changed a computer system, file program or Web site without permission."
- 'Old guys' on Facebook You might find a 17-year-old's perspective on 40+-year-olds in social-networking sites as interesting as I did, so see this CNET piece by summer intern Sabena Suri. "Before I get to why I think most of the older folks hanging out on MySpace and Facebook are creepy, here (in the spirit of open-mindedness) are a few of the more semi-legitimate reasons they might be using the sites," she writes, pointing to six, except the last one is "Being just plain creepy." Concerning those, she says most teens "learn at a young age not to add friends they don't know personally," and — though it's "sometimes hard to distinguish the creeps from the nice older folks" — the creeps often try a little too hard. Posers do stand out and look pretty "lame," Sabena says. Here also, from Newsweek, are 20- or 30-somethings on "Why I love Facebook" and "Why I hate Facebook."
- Finnish teen fined for YouTube video. A 15-year-old student in Finland has been fined for posting a YouTube video "showing a karaoke performance of his teacher and for claiming she was a lunatic," the Associated Press reports. The video depicts his teacher singing karaoke at a party. The student said that he did it as a prank "and had not intended to insult the teacher." The video said the teacher was "a lunatic singing at the karaoke of the mental hospital." As good a warning as any that there can be consequences from posting defaming photos and video, prank or not. It's always good to ask permission before uploading images of others. In Finland, as in most other countries, there can be legal consequences.
- Teen's hack unlocks iPhone. It took him 500 hours, but 17-year-old George Hotz figured out how to unlock his iPhone from the AT&T networking and use it on T-Mobile. "He posted his 10-step hack on his blog Thursday, along with a video illustrating it on YouTube; by early Friday afternoon, his video had been viewed by some 130,000 people," TechNewsWorld reports. Fortunately for Apple and AT&T most people won't "try this at home." It takes a good two hours and involves soldering and software programming.
