Teaching Matters:Recently, the National Centre for Technology in Education (NCTE) launched a campaign to raise awareness of internet safety and to promote safe, responsible practice by young people when they go online. Entitled Watch Your Space, this safety initiative is targeted at teenagers and young adults and provides a range of practical advice and solid support to young internet users.
It is top-class, well thought out and hard-hitting. It pulls no punches when it comes to warning young people of potential dangers. And it's a refreshing change from some of the totally impractical and almost hysterical calls made by some adults for the banning of social networking sites such as Bebo and MySpace in response to increased cyber-bullying and other downsides of internet usage. Such calls make as much sense as calling for the banning of pencils in response to an anonymous letter.
The only downside I can see to it is that many parents will make the mistake of thinking that because "someone" is running this safety campaign it's one less thing they have to worry about when it comes to their children. Others will take the view that if it's for teenagers then there's no need for them to worry about it until their children leave behind the world of the primary school and move on to second level. Still more will mistakenly think that schools will be able to use this excellent resource, teach safety skills to young people and everything will be well in the world.
No safety programme works like that. Just as the use of alcohol doesn't start at age 18, use of the internet doesn't start when children turn 13. Most pre-teen children are now well able to access the internet and are doing so regularly. So appropriate safety procedures should be part and parcel of using the internet. Schools can and do teach some of this and take responsibility for what children get up to when using the internet while at school, but most internet usage takes place in the home. Internet safety for young people is every parent's business.
And that means putting in the time - more than a quick run through a safety site such as Watch Your Space. No parent in their right mind would dream of letting their youngsters loose behind the wheel of a car after a few screenings of a driver safety video. We all know that it takes time and teaching to make sure that the kids are safe on the road. Likewise no parent should let their children loose on the internet without being sure of their safety.
It has never been an easy task for one generation to keep pace with the next but the pace of change in recent years has made keeping up a very difficult task. This generation of children has gone from Bosco to Bebo in the blink of an eye. There was a time when their own room in the house meant my space to teenagers. Today that place is somewhere out in cyberspace. But just as parents were always vigilant about what went on in the house there is now a need to keep a watchful eye on what takes place in children's use of the internet.
Just as everything that glitters isn't gold the internet isn't just the educational tool that youngsters might have you believe, and here's a few reasons why it might be important to keep an eye on young users.
Research carried out by Irish teenagers on Irish teenagers and available on the Watch Your Space website (www.watchyourspace.ie) shows that nearly half of young users regularly stay online longer than they intended. More than one in 10 say school work suffers because of the time they spend online. About a fifth are defensive and secretive when asked what they are doing online. More than one in 10 go online to avoid real-life problems and nearly twice as many worry that their lives without the internet would be boring, empty and joyless.
Other findings show teens losing sleep to go online, struggling unsuccessfully to cut down on usage, hiding how long they were online, going online to the exclusion of others and being depressed, moody or nervous while offline.
Those findings look remarkably like addiction traits to me and - surprise, surprise - there is now a new disorder to look out for. It's called Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) and many young people are potential victims. Of course this number would be far greater if broadband connection was widely available throughout the country.
And this comes on top of the clear dangers for children of being asked for personal information while online. More than a quarter of Irish nine to 16 year olds say they "met" someone new on the Internet who asked for information such as their photo, phone number, street address or the school they attended.
So the message for parents is clear. Just as parents should know who their children's face-to-face friends are, they should know who their cyber-friends are. This means appropriate supervision while online at home. I acknowledge that this is a huge challenge for parents but it is one that cannot be shirked.
The first and easiest step is to log on to www.watchyourspace.ie. The more difficult, but far more important step, is to negotiate appropriate supervision. Since internet usage is becoming ever more common among primary school pupils, I would advise every parent with a child in the senior classes at primary level to begin that conversation now.
Watch Your Space was developed in partnership with Childline and following consultation with The National Educational Psychological Service.www.watchyourspace.ie
Valerie Monaghan is principal of Scoil Chiarán, Glasnevin, Dublin
