Social Media and Digital Citizenship

In this week's class, we discussed two very important topics that have large effects on our students today: social media and digital citizenship. Our students are growing up in a world completely different than the ones we grew up in. While we were able to adjust as technology grew, they are diving in headfirst into the highly developed internet, and all that it consists of.

First off, social media. Kids are constantly using new apps to communicate with each other, and since their elders are not as tech-savvy, it takes months to years for the "popular" apps to be announced to parents, and by then, kids are onto the next thing.

Social media is used differently by everyone, and the well known "like" that is associated with social media platforms means something different to everyone too. One question Alex proposed while leading his rotating chair was whether or not to get rid of the "like" on social media, since it has so many negative effects on kids and their self esteem. However, the discussion that grew from this question brought up the idea that one person's meaning of "liking" something is totally different than someone else's. One person may like every post they see that their friends posted, while another may only like a post if they agree and feel passionate about the content.

My thought was instead of getting rid of "likes", get rid of the current stigma and power they hold over users. That way, people can still show support of an image for its content, but the user does not feel they are sharing something to receive attention. Instead, they are able to show off something they did or show their support for something they're passionate about.

Second, we talked about digital citizenship, in a rotating chair lead by Chelsea. While today's adults know how to properly interact with others, because they grew up only being able to interact with others face to face, kids today are not learning such a thing. This is due to the majority of their interactions with others being online. Therefore, kids need to be taught how to properly interact and treat others on the internet.

Kids also need to be taught how to actually use the internet; what sites to trust, what people to trust, how to portray themselves, and how to maintain an appropriate digital "tattoo". But when considering all these things kids need to learn in order to use the internet in a safe way, Chelsea posed a problem: Who is responsible for teaching these skills?

Many of us responded with "the parents", because we all know that high school is a busy time, where a certain curriculum needs to be taught, and we don't have time in the day to teach what today is considered "social skills" (aka "internet etiquette"). We figured, since kids are growing up on the internet, shouldn't their parents be teaching them what to do and what not to do, like they're teaching them their colors and to say "please" and "thank you"?

There's a problem with this though. Not all kids have their parents there to sit down with them and go through all the do's and don'ts of being online. Some kids see their teachers more than they see their parents. This is something we as teachers need to be aware of. So yes, this may mean that we need to take time out of our busy schedule to teach our students how to properly use the technology that they grew up having at their finger tips. And yes, we may feel that these are basic life skills in this day and age and they should be taught by their parents, because our students are not our kids. But at the end of the day, the care we show for our students is like that of a parent, and since we spend so much time with them, we end up seeing our students as our kids. And to fully prepare our students for the world ahead of them, we need to make sure they are fully equipped with all the life skills they will need to succeed in the world.

A world based around technology.