Facebook and child protection

Woo hoo! Let’s all rejoice, Facebook launches its panic button… an innovation! Now I know you can detect the slight irony in my voice here and let me say, it is not because I don’t take on-line security seriously, but I just don’t think that this will not make much difference and I feel that it is media hype.

For all those of us in the UK I am sure we can recall recent newspaper articles regarding a journalist posing as a 14-year-old girl on line and being swamped by inappropriate suggestions. The implication in this article was that it was Facebook that the journalist joined; we later learnt it was not, it was a site that most teens wouldn’t join. I even posed as a 14-year-old girl for two weeks on Facebook and nothing happened at all.
I think that this is the adults trying to solve, pretty ineffectively, what is essentially a teen problem. I have spoken to many teens about this as well as an expert on these matters in the UK and they all agree that they don’t need it. Most will just ignore, delete and take inappropriate people out their stream. As for cyber bullying most I spoke to said they would get help elsewhere. Teens are for the most very effective at managing their on-line presence. I feel it is there to help the adults more than the teens. And lets no forget it is an application they need to put on face book – can’t see them doing that!

From what I can gather, most of the awful cases cited as the reason for this panic button would not have panicked the teenagers themselves, so why would they have pushed the button?

My biggest concern is that most people will feel we have solved a problem with this. I was a police officer in London and have dealt with some awful cases like those cited. The challenge isn’t in the media, the challenge is in us spotting the signs of a vulnerable child (if a child is vulnerable to a paedophile, then they are vulnerable off and on line) and ensuring that the child gets support and help.

I also worry that by making a massive fuss about this we may be failing to educate our youth on the far reaching problems that social media really does cause. Things like their digital imprint and the lack of responsibility that an on line life can bring. We also give the message they are at risk for people they don’t know when most are at more risk from those they do know.

Also I do think that things like this may stop parents and other adults being vigilant when it comes to on-line safety and not educating their children enough.

While I welcome any move to make children safe, I think this is a tiny drop in the ocean, but at least it has the issue on the radar.

The socialization of TV

I have long been banging on about social TV and how the future of viewing is changing. Last year’s X Factor in the UK saw the audeince really voicing their opinions on certain things, causing some of the celebrity judges to apologise in real time, which quite an unprecedented thing.

And it seems that people are finally catching up with Google launching its Lean Back service (which, while maybe not mainstream, does give us an insight into how future viewing may be), but the most exciting development is that of Starling, a social platform that will allow TV viewers to share and talk about things in real time. While I cannot really find the ins and outs, it does have some media heavyweights behind it (Fremantle TV’s Declan Caulfield and Kevin Slavin, a leader in the New York technology scene), so you can gauarantee it will get the industry’s attention.

“Another startup has launched around the amorphous social TV space, but this time it’s steered by industry heavyweights and has initial clients, a predecessor and a slick interface, along with a business plan.” April 12th 2010 – Contagious Magazine

Kevin Slavin states that the great thing about social media is that it is adhoc and when it comes to discussing TV shows, this strength is the problem in that, for example, in the World Cup, what hashtag do you use?

While I agree and am looking forward to this product, I also wonder if trying to put a box around it and telling people how to do it will work. Will that lure us away from Facebook and Twitter, or are they so ingrained that it will not budge us?

However, what is clear is that this generation is making TV more personal, more customisable and most importantly, more accountable and for that, I am truly happy.

Finally we stop ragging on the future of technology

It seems that the tide is beginning to turn when it comes to internet use and social media. For many years now, the mass media has been saying that social media is destroying us all, something most of us know to be untrue, and it looks as if current research may show just that.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project has released its report on Internet-based socialization. The conclusions in The Future of Online Socialization segment of the survey are positive.

The online world, according to most of the Internet specialists surveyed, is going to add to the texture and mood of social interactions, not detract from them.

“The social benefits of Internet use will far outweigh the negatives over the next decade, according to experts. They say this is because email, social networks, and other online tools offer ‘low friction’ opportunities to create, enhance, and rediscover social ties that make a difference in people’s lives. The internet lowers traditional communications constraints of cost, geography, and time; and it supports the type of open information sharing that brings people together.”

It is a pleasant surprise to see information like this beginning to hit main stream and as social media becomes much more localised and useful to us, things can only get better!

Read more The Future is Bright for Online Socialization

A new blog about the pressure on young girls

A coach I know has just started writing a great blog; what is so great about it is that she reads the newspapers and posts some great stuff. Here are three  interesting things that I found.

A six-week, Government funded course is claiming to prepare young women “For the business world and their social life”, by teaching them how to walk in high heels. The course, which is offered as an extra-curricular activity to full time students at South Thames College, is designed to teach students how to walk in heels, improve their posture, walk lighter and improve confidence.

OK, I’m all for teaching our young girls skills but, walking in heels, can that really help? Is that not just saying you are how you look and present yourself? Surely there are better thing the government could be spending their money on?

A major new survey of 4,000 parents and children has found that the average family spends just 49 minutes a day together. Almost half of those surveyed admitted they did not spend enough ‘quality’ time together as a family.

This shocked me. 49 minutes felt like a lot, but what are they doing in that 49 minutes, I wonder? My guess is that it is time with something else going on; what do you think?

Yesterday, I was flicking through The Times, when I came across an interesting article. “Generation Me is too far from reality to care about others.” The article was commenting on some research into the behaviour of college students in the United States. The research found that concern for other people’s feelings is declining among young people. This is being replaced by a ‘Generation Me’ of self-centred and competitive individuals, after the findings found that young people today are 40 per cent lower in empathy than their counterparts 20 – 30 years ago. How sad.

The researchers involved in the study suggest the main reason for the decline may be technology, which has been accused of replacing human interaction. Face book, Twitter, My Space and Bebo, the virtual playgrounds where so many young people love to hang out.

Now this really made me cross when I read this. Lower in empathy; don’t care about others feelings, that is certainly not what I see. I see children who possibly don’t care so much about what others think about them, which I personally think is a good thing, children who may have less respect for their elders, a phrase that always irritated the hell out of me and a generation of children that do feel they deserve more, children that are so galvanised about fairness and ending inequality. How can that be Generation Me?

Oh and guess what, they blame technology because we cannot empathise on-line. Have they not all forgotten that these children have perfectly great social lives with their friends at school and socialise quite well face to face?

Yes, technology does cause some challenges, mainly to do with resilience but it is not making our children self-obsessed. Please stop it with the youth bashing! If you really wanted to look for a Generation Me label, surely is Gen X would fit it much better. Self-reliant rebels who really didn’t care about who they upset!

Generation Z

There has been little talk up to now about Gen Z, but I can see a few things coming up through the ranks. A recent post has claimed that they are more like Gen Y than Gen Y. Saying that, they are more connected and more comfortable with technology – well of course it is all they have ever known! At 9 years old, my daughter has her own web show, her own Skype and plays computer games while talking for hours to her pal over the internet.

However, to me this is a little on the surface for Gen Z. Because they have mainly Gen X as parents, they have something that Gen Y did not have and that is realism.

While the Baby Boomers molly coddled their little Gen Y, Gen X will have none of that!

Read Get ready here come the next Generation

Why does the i-pad have it so right?

Now I have to say that I have become suddenly obsessed with wanting an i-pad, mainly due to my dreams of lazing with the kids on summer days, writing the many books that I have in my head. Whether I get one has yet to be seen. But what I have noticed in my children and their friends is their different thoughts and approaches to the I-pad, which I thought was very interesting.

My 13-year-old and her friends said, “What’s all the fuss about, it’s just a big i-phone!” They recognised the coolness of it, but that was it. Meanwhile, the little Gen Z, my 9-year-old, had a different take entirely.

I was watching TV with her the other day and chatting and she suddenly stopped all she was doing, moved closer to the telly and told me to be quiet. Knowing it was just the adverts, I was left wondering what food advert she was obsessed with now. When I came back she was still there, her eyes wide, looking with glee at the telly. It was not a food advert; it was the advert for the i-pad. She had the biggest smile on her face and she looked at me and told me that she had to get an i-pad!

An i-pad at 9, I thought, what is going on here? Why not a laptop? No, she needed an i-pad; just think how much it would change her life! As we began to talk about this,the more it became clear that she just thought the i-pad got how she lives. As someone who has always known technology, has her own web show and is using Skype for all communication, the mobile phone plays a less important role in her life than the ability to get information when she wants it. It was clear that she thought that this piece of technology understood how she worked and with it, she could do all the things she wanted!

As I thought about it, I realise that she was right. There has been lots of criticism for the i-pad, with people asking why anyone would want it when it only does the same as your phone, computer, etc. But to the children who have know nothing else, it is right and as Apple say, “I don’t have to change myself, the product fits with me.”

I think that the i-pad is a glimpse of the word to come and from what I am seeing in my little one and her friends, it could mean that the connected word used to describe youth could become intuitive. Maybe it’s not all about connection, maybe mobile phones will have to change a lot. Maybe it’s more about a piece of technology that lets them live the way they want and maybe the i-pad is it.