As a society, we've been talking about youth online risk for years, but we've only just begun to talk about young people's resilience, which is what helps them keep risk from turning into harm. It's important to know, as the authors of an important new report note, that resilience – the ability to deal with negative experiences without being upset by them – doesn't come from avoiding risk, online … [Read more...] about Study on long-neglected factor in Net safety: Resilience
online safety
Two milestones in social media safety ed
Note the phrase "social media safety" in the headline. There are many more milestones in Internet safety education overall, but here are two vital ones for youth safety in social media since its early days in the middle of the last decade: Milestone 1: the finding of the Berkman Center's Internet Safety Technical Task Force (now Berkman Klein Center) that not all young people are equally at … [Read more...] about Two milestones in social media safety ed
Does tracking our kids’ every move make them safer?
Reflecting on a cellphone app developer's claim, I'm thinking that tracking our kids' movements, moment by moment, isn't the best way to enhance "family awareness." Those are the words of Chris Hull, CEO of the company that developed the Life360 tracking app, in an interview for Time. Is that "awareness" as in "surveillance"? Oddly, Time interpreted Hull's reference to be "family awareness" as … [Read more...] about Does tracking our kids’ every move make them safer?
How anonymity’s a safety factor: 1 clear example
People sometimes fear or vilify online anonymity, and there are well-lighted places like Facebook where reliance on offline identity is a safety factor, but we seem often to forget that anonymity is a safety factor too, one that long predates the Internet. Well-known examples are political and human-rights activists in many parts of the world now and throughout history. Another example was … [Read more...] about How anonymity’s a safety factor: 1 clear example
The ‘minimum age’ & other unintended consequences of COPPA
It's tough to be the FTC – or anyone else trying to make rules for user-driven (social) media. It's hard enough to make static rules address fast-changing technology. Then there's the problem of changing understanding of consumers – the intended beneficiaries of the rules and the users of user-driven media – as we all adjust to having the data that represents so much of our everyday lives in a … [Read more...] about The ‘minimum age’ & other unintended consequences of COPPA