22nd June 2006

Parents getting more involved in DSN

posted in isafety, web 2.0 |

I don’t know if anyone else has already come up with one, but I think we need to start using an acronym for “digital social networking.” How about DSN? (The military loves acronyms, and I am finding that corporate America does too.) I went ahead and created a new English WikiPedia page for “Digital Social Networking” today. Feel free to edit and add to what is there and share the link!

According to the article “Why mom enlisted an online sleuth to keep tabs on child,” more parents are recognizing the importance of getting involved with the virtual activities of their children:

“Internet predators haven’t changed over the years, but what has changed are the ways they can contact and infiltrate through cellphones, IMs, blogs, social websites and a number of other Internet tools,” says Mr. Colburn.

Generally, parents are not as involved partly because of the rise of two-income families (i.e. two absent parents) as well as the increased number of computers and child-owned cellphones per household, and the technological generation gap that has kept cyber-sophisticated children light-years ahead of their techno-befuddled guardians.

But now, more are beginning to recognize the dangers of such neglect. Using an array of new monitoring, blocking, and filtering technology, they are more determined to protect their kids from the consequences they have seen in the media.

This is a positive sign, although I contend just more F2F TALKING (face to face communication) can do wonders. The problem is not the technology, so the ultimate solution will not be found via technology, whether we are talking about filters, blocks, etc. As I have noted previously, most of the problems we see through the window of technology and DSN do not have to do with technology– they have to do with other things. Parents need to be more involved in the lives of their kids, and communication is the key. This article is a positive voice in a sea of general negativity regarding DSN.

The issues raised here again touch on control, creativity, and education. Parent Larry Estes, quoted in the article, has the right attitude:

“We feel education is the best form of control,” says Estes. “If we tried to control everything, they would just go out and seek it somewhere else.”

We can’t shut down the Internet, and we can’t protect our children from every offensive or inappropriate resource out there or yet to be created. So what must we do? Help equip them with the skills and values they’ll need to make good decisions WHEN WE ARE NOT THERE TO INTERVENE. Other authors have called this “socially inoculating” young people for the real world. Although it was written before DSN became a reality, the best book I have read on these issues is Stephen Glenn and Jane Nelson’s book “Raising Self-Reliant Children in a Self-Indulgent World: Seven Building Blocks for Developing Capable Young People.” We’ve always needed to do a better job communicating and helping raise our young people– DSN is just providing a window into reality that drives the point home even more strongly.

Thanks to AHF for this article, and for getting me to read Glenn and Nelson’s books in the first place! And for doing a fair bit of social inoculation with me in my youth! :-)

On this day..

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 22nd, 2006 at 10:33 am and is filed under isafety, web 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  1. 1 On June 23rd, 2006, Kevin Farnham said:

    My wife and I wrote the first published book about MySpace.com, “MySpace Safety: 51 Tips for Teens and Parents” — and this is really the crux of what we try to convey to parents in the book. As the world changes, parents must change, they must educate themselves, to the point where they understand and can “live in” the world their children are living in. If parents don’t do this, then they do indeed become unreliable sources of information, from their children’s point of view.

    In order to teach, parents need to know. That’s what our book is all about. Technology may change, but the necessity for parents to understand the world their children are experiencing has always been there. It’s a difficult thing to accomplish as a parent, but it’s necessary if you want to continue to be a relevant source of trusted information for your children as they grow into becoming adults.

    We’re just parents, our book isn’t backed by a fancy name publisher (the publisher is us!) — but, Wesley picked up on one of the quotes from our rough draft, and we’ve followed this blog ever since. It’s not an easy task, being a parent. The changes in technology have come so fast, and the early adopters have been our kids (for those of us who are of a certain age)!