Not offended at all! In fact, I AGREE completely with the huge difference between predators and cyberbullies, as well as the responsibilities you’ve assigned accordingly.
(btw, Shaping Youth functions on the ‘parent ed’ AND ‘PEER ed’ side of this issue, so by no means are we internet safety experts, that’s why we send them to forums like this one!)

I think our disconnect/misunderstanding is that I may not have clearly defined what I meant by ‘posting w/that kind of openness’-

--I’m well aware kids text provocatively w/false bravado and acronym fast-chat like WTFBBQ, that’s a given…

--Also aware of the open/free sharing of teen photos/feelings/lives w/a level of transparency that adults will never begin to ‘get’ (in fact, it makes many shudder, inc. ASL!)

I was referring more to the false context of the way this particular law enforcement officer baited for ‘cybering’ and offline ‘hookups’ via “demo” to imply that serious (criminal!) solicitations to minors were prevalent, with teens snatching up every exhibitionist opportunity in sensationalized mode…And that just isn’t the norm!

It serves well to get ‘gasps’ from petrified parents in the audience, but it doesn’t match the data of teens generally ‘ignoring weirdos’ and disengaging…

THAT level of intimacy is usually gleaned by LONG term relationship building and grooming, consistent with the Pew Internet ALP data & Congressional Internet Caucus report on sexual solicitation of teens. http://www.netcaucus.org/statistics/ Seems the officer is misleading, creating that ‘panic attack’ that makes parents clam up and shut down rather than teach media literacy and educate…that’s what bugs me about it.

As for the cyberbullying part, yep, THAT is indeed a huge problem…

I just got out of the She’s Geeky “un”conference, and met/interviewed Debbie from Adina’s Deck to see her film portrayal of same. I found her film to be a nice dramatization of the hows/whys of severe flaming/friendship angst, but hope she’ll add a call to action, like Andy Carvin’s Stop Cyberbullying site or THIS forum, in all tween/teen presentations so kids can get help!

This hub is a perfect spot for gleaning balanced, accurate, respectful dialogue & disagreements and is a true service to all ages. Plus, there are some wonderful MMORPG and gaming experts such as yourself that I’d like to hear more from!

‘Forgottengargoyle’, would you consider a mini interview next month on Shaping Youth? I have a gazillion questions for you, since you’ve got twenty years of chat moderation in this realm, and know you’d lend a lot to the conversation to demystify, debunk, and deconstruct myths as well as reveal some of the ‘holes’ in the system, safety-wise.

If you’re game, (so to speak ping me on our blog and I’ll reply offline when avail to set up a time? Thanks again for your insights…

p.s. On a positive note, per the original subject line above, just met Beth Kanter at She's Geeky too...She amazingly used Twitter/the internet to raise $1K in 24-hours to send a young orphan woman in Cambodia to college! I just wrote about it on Shaping Youth here: http://www.shapingyouth.org/blog/?p=729

Awe-inspiring hope and promise! (sure would love to see more of this and less of the predatory cyberbullying!)

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Using the power of media for positive change

Being an Internet addict myself (for work purposes though) I certainly believe in monitoring my kids activities on the Internet. I believe the way I watch them when they are playing in the backyard playground, I should watch them exactly the same way when they are playing on the Internet. And that is why I got together with few of my friends and created the free monitoring software, which I use at all of my home computers, that provides me with daily email and also provides me ability to check their activity from any Internet enabled computer, be it from work, from StarBucks or from Local Library.

Speaking of filters, the latest Pew & Internet & American Life study had an interesting finding about them. I quoted the finding in the news item I just uploaded about the report: Monitoring software on computers teens use at home "seems to be more effective than filtering software in limited contact with strangers online," the study found. In his analysis Aaron later points out that that may be because parents who install monitoring software tend to be more engaged in their kids' online experiences than those who install filtering (teens know many workarounds for accessing blocked sites, whether via proxy servers or connecting outside the home). Best to all,
Anne
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Anne Collier
ConnectSafely co-director

I should add that the polarity of the views posted here are exactly what I see when we do outreach programs for parent education!

So I guess my question to ALL of you is this:

How can we prevent the infiltration of one-sided propaganda to offer a more balanced view and two-sided conversation rather than a fear-driven shut-down that often creates a digital wedge in parent/child relationships?

For instance, at our local middle school, every single year at the internet talk, law enforcement comes in and instills the fear factor by ‘teen baiting’ online in a “live chat” LCD show & tell of mock predator solicitation. He lures kids into telling him info in “real time” (grooming people he’s already set up prior, sometimes having a rapport w/them for several months) so it’s an inaccurate depiction.

He prompts engagement in provocative innuendo, planting the “what if” seed in everyone’s mind on stranger danger.

It’s highly effective in scaring the wits out of kids who think they know it all, but it does a disservice by “proving” to parents in a “real time demo” that their kids are unsafe and exposed to predators 24/7 ready to pounce…As we all know from this forum and other research out there, that’s unmitigated hogwash, and cyberbullying is the predominant terrorizing tactic among teens.

Each time I see this type of presentation, I end up rolling my eyes, thinking about how distorted the ‘demo’ is because he’s typing/replying with evocative inappropriate comments that most kids would never dream of leading someone on with…Most kids would never, ever, consider posting with that level of openness, until they were ‘groomed’ for a looooooong time, thinking they were talking to a ‘teen friend,’ (and there are numerous other psychosocial issues in play as well) Nevertheless...

Every year I see parents immediately retreat into “bunker mentality” mode…whereas we believe at Shaping Youth that it’s MUCH more useful to give parents AND kids the brainpower, tools, and media literacy skill sets to stay safe and secure…rather than rely on 'software' which often gives a false sense of security. (much like parents rely on cellphones as tethers to their kids w/out realizing they've literally just put "the whole world in their hands" & opened up a bunch of other mobile media issues)

Any advice on how to handle this law enforcement demo talk on 10/25? I’ll be out of town this round so unable to ‘counter-reply’ from the audience to mitigate some of the damage. Ideas?

I’ve already ‘planted’ a Shaping Youth parent from the school to announce this safety forum and the NetFamily News resource for starters…I’m also looking for solutions that are scalable to address this universally across the board. (e.g. I wish schools would require media literacy as policy, but I don’t see that happening any time soon)

The other thing I do for negative parent ed is sent them to our “positive picks” section at Shaping Youth where they can see firsthand how media can be absolutely magic when content/creative is impactful and used wisely…Anyway, ping me with any comments before the officer comes on 10/25 if you can?

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Using the power of media for positive change

Welcome and thanks for posting, Trudinger. I wonder if it’s caught on in Oz. Has anyone here tried it? (The download is for Aussies only.)

Best,
Maureen

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Maureen Kochan
ConnectSafely forum manager

Welcome back, topparent. Has anyone tried any free parental-control software that they can recommend?

Thanks,
Maureen Kochan
ConnectSafely forum manager

I agree with you, son of liberty, on two of those points - that people could be more open-minded about change (I don't know why it's such a hard thing for so many, and 2) that parents can be overprotective and obsess about the negative aspects of social media and tech. I talk about all this in an interview I just gave MIT Prof. Henry Jenkins for his blog. I worry, too, when I see excessive fear of risk and the urge to remove it completely from teens' lives. When I was researching a chapter for our book, a couple of researchers told me that risk assessment is a principal task of teenagers. So I asked a prominent pediatrician about this risk-removal tendency that some parents have, and he very definitely said we're doing our children a disservice if we don't let them do that assessment work that helps develop their prefrontal cortexes (that's in Part 2 of Henry's series). For more on this, see "Teenage Brain: A Work in Progress" at the National Institute of Mental Health's site. All best,
Anne
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Anne Collier
ConnectSafely co-director

Haha.. Negative impact of internet? Does it ever exist? Parents are been overly protecting their children, this can't, that can't. Is that the correct way to ever educate their child?

This is totally selfish act, only make their child been outcast by others and feel like a weirdo. Pronographic is bad? How about for those who went peeping at someone naked just to satisfy his sexual desire? After which that can't satisfy him, he start raping others. Is pronographic really bad?

Life has changed, time has changed, everything changed. Staying at your old environment don't do you good. How about when the invention of handphone? Parents will believe that it has high radiation, children will chat till late night, children might get to know many bad guys by calling any number. But now, most people can have no wallet when go out, but not their handphone. Without it you will lose contact with your parent, your friends and your world. That is trend, for time has change.

People who say internet are totally negative, are those who just don't want to change, living in their own well. Hoping the well will be the world for their children. Those are selfish act, parents.

Internet just open doors to everyone. Hacking is not totally a bad thing, they can help to deal with illegal people, and get evidence to sue them. Doors aren't the bad things, the bad part is their parent don't teach their children, don't implant a good character on them. Not the fault of internet, but parent, who push the blame to the internet. Why don't spend more time on your child, then to complain about this and that, which led your child astray.

Don't force your way through, treat them as same level as you. Children are not slave, not for you to make command on them, beat them, scold them. Does parent ever admit their mistake if they done wrongly in front of their child? For those who don't please think through.

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Edited by terion at 01/02/2007 8:15 PM