Young people seem very blasé about their privacy, but their opinions may change in years to come. – Andrew Charlesworth
In January 2008, the Sun newspaper in Britain published an article entitled Why Facebook Is Bad For You. It examined the assumptions that many users of this social media, including children, have about it.
Information technology and law expert Andrew Charlesworth explains why people should be more careful online at http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/700350/Why-Facebook-is-bad-for-you.html.
“People seem to think information they put on the Internet is transient – here today, gone tomorrow.” However, he contends: “Increasingly, we are finding data doesn’t disappear when you delete it. It may be automatically saved by Facebook or Google.”
According to the expert: “You may think you got rid of something but it can come back to bite you. If you are 18, you don’t think about your 42-year-old self looking for a job or promotion. People don’t consider that long-term risk. I think this could become a serious problem in future.
“People should consider what information they are letting out about themselves and to whom. Even if you think you have secured your pages through Facebook, the data may be accessible through other routes like Google.”
Facebook as a social media network has literally transformed the world of communication beyond our wildest dreams and imagination. It is a tool that allows businesses to reach potential customers who may reside in the far corners of the Earth. It provides numerous opportunities for families and old friends to rekindle friendships and form new bonds. Its positives may very well outweigh the negatives.
Within the contexts of our schools, however, there are some negatives that are looming large on the horizon and the originators of this social media might need to revisit the kind of use and access available to underage children.
Much can be said about the trivial information shared on Facebook. However, if this was all, we would not mind. As a school principal, I have to deal with an increasing frequency of threats, verbal abuse, sexual charges and accusations that children shoot across cyberspace at one another.
Not only is the language graphic and lewd, but it speaks to a warped sense of human sexuality among girls and boys, many of whom have not even lost their mother’s features.
The raw boasting about their sexual prowess and endowment is nothing more than unedited child pornography which is being created right under the noses of parents, most of whom don’t know about the filth in which their teenagers are wallowing. Invariably, it is girls “busing” one another over boys or “men” to whom many may lay claim.
In addition to the sexual lewdness and sometimes nudity, there is the childish chat about who wants to beat whom, who looks bad and who smells stink, all of which provide a backdrop and lay the foundation for the social media-based animosity, hatred and sometimes venom to move from cyberspace to real-time action that is often dramatized on the school compound in the bathrooms and classrooms.
The situation often brings friends tagged on Facebook to defend one another in real time. This often means that groups of girls seven or eight strong will gang up against one or two others, or larger groups against each other. All it takes for a clash on the school compound is a bounce or brush or a cut eye.
Students engaged in such social media activity often see their academic performance plummeting way below their potential. When cyberbullying turns real, teachers, guidance counsellors and principals spend considerable teaching and administrative time investigating and trying to unravel the puzzling maze, whose details are both dumbfounding and compounding.
What is often most pathetic is that parents and guardians are usually totally ignorant or in denial. Sometimes the parents will make their threats and blame one another for their own failing and parental neglect. This gang-like, two-faced hooliganism poses a new kind of challenge to teaching, managing and learning in today’s schools.
Research done by Charlesworth found that only two out of 70 students at a Canadian university had read the privacy policy when they signed up on Facebook. He advises that students read these policies and think carefully about the material they post. After all, what might seem humorous now might not turn out to be so funny in future.
An official appeal should be made to those who host the local Facebook access to conduct a survey on a select sample of accounts belonging to early teens. Where the material posted is found to have the potential to corrupt public morals, the matter should be brought to the attention of the parents and, if necessary, the accounts closed.
While Mark Zuckerberg and his associates enjoy the good life, many a young, sometimes innocent, resident of cyberspace remains estranged from what is decent and morally prudent. Somebody must be held accountable for the cesspool of iniquity created by unsupervised babes and sucklings.
• Matthew D. Farley is a secondary school principal, chairman of the National Forum on Education, and social commentator.