Welcome to the Reach Out Pro blog

Dr Philippa Collin and Dr Amanda Third, University of Western Sydney

A couple of weeks ago, yet again, young people's use of technology made the headlines. Facebook's head of privacy, Mozelle Thompson, addressed the Australian Senate committee on cybersafety to defend the company's track record in enforcing its underage users' policy and minimising young people's access to inappropriate content. Coming on the tails of a high-profile cyberbullying case and the scandal around a birthday party invitation going viral, Facebook's reassurances about the safety of social networking hardly made a splash. If we are to believe the mainstream media, the risks of young people's social networking practices are diabolical.

In this climate of moral panic, policy makers, schools, non-government organisations, corporate media outlets and parents are under increasing pressure to respond to what is perceived to be an exponentially expanding information-and-communication-technology-universe of risk and uncertainty. But where are the views of young people in this debate?

For the 83% of young Australians who use social networking services on a regular basis, the media hype doesn't resonate with their everyday experience. Since the rise of Web2.0, the ways people use the internet across the globe have shifted dramatically. Whereas we used to use the web primarily for information and entertainment purposes, now we use it primarily to communicate. Young people are at the forefront of this shift in English-speaking nations. Many young Australians now consider social networking an integral part of everyday life - an indispensable way of connecting with friends and family: from a computer, or on the run using a mobile phone. Indeed, given that mobile phone costs are not all that easy to cover on a weekly allowance from your parents or a part-time job after school, social networking via a mobile phone provides a less expensive alternative to voice calls and texting.

Research shows that, under the right circumstances, social networking is not the corruptive force it is commonly made out to be. Studies internationally demonstrate that social networking can enhance young people's learning both at school and work, and in informal contexts.  Further, adolescence is a time when a young person works out who they are and social networking is one important practice through which this process of identity formation takes place. Most importantly though, social networking supports young people's existing friendships and helps them develop new ones. Having strong friendship networks - both online and offline - and feeling a part of a vibrant community has been shown to make young people more resilient and therefore more able to cope with the stresses of being a teenager.

However, evidence of these positive impacts often doesn't find traction among popular opinion. The young people we have been working with report that a generational divide structures understandings of social networking and leads to a lot of misunderstanding. If we allow this divide to take root, it will lead ultimately to ineffectual social and technology policy and programs that fail to address either young people's or adults' needs. Further, with our ageing population set to increase into the future, if we are not careful, we risk producing a society that is deeply divided along generational fault lines. In short, we need to get everyone on the same screen.

So how do we address this intergenerational divide and build a community that is skilled and knowledgeable about how to be safe in a digital world? Can we attend to parents' fears, without either over-emphasising or trivialising the risks? A bit of myth-busting goes a long way to injecting some creative and progressive ideas into the cybersafety debate.

Online social networking is a youth craze!

Actually, social networking services are 'for everyone'. Our research shows that many adults use online social networking services regularly, like linkedin.com, Google Groups, flickr.com and so on. But because they're not using Facebook or MySpace - those services that are singled out in the mainstream media as the spaces that get young people in trouble - they don't classify it as social networking. This means that adults often miss the fact that they have a lot more in common with young people than they recognise.

Young people can't - or won't - recognise risk

Formal cybersafety education is doing an excellent job at putting some of the risks on young people's radars - including cyberbullying, predation and identity theft. And the kind of informal learning and information sharing that goes on between young people helps to equip them with a range of technical skills and strategies to quash the digital devils. The young people we've worked with not only have a sophisticated awareness of the risks social networking pose but are particularly aware of adult attitudes and concerns about what they're doing online. The main problem, as they see it, is that adults don't understand or value the positive role social networking services play in the lives of young people.

Adults are the experts on what young people need (especially when it comes to cyber safety)

There are many indications that young people know a great deal about what they need but when it comes to cybersafety we rarely ask them. In seminars and programs that draw on adult experts to 'educate' parents about how to raise children in a digital age, young people's direct voices are often absent. Maybe that's because we're confronted, as adults, by what they know and say. It reminds us of our own inadequacies or frailties. It also highlights how challenging it can be to translate 'what we know about what they (might) need' into something that is actually engaging, relevant and meaningful. But interestingly, young people not only have good ideas about what they need; they also have a lot of knowledge about what adults need to help them realistically assess and guide their children about online risks.

Cybersafety education is for kids

71% of parents worry about their child's safety online. To address these concerns, they turn to conventional sources such as cybersafety seminars held at their child's school or government campaigns. These are all worthwhile, but surely the most productive way to understand and respond to the opportunities and risks of social networking is to set up mechanisms for discussion to take place across generations? If we continue to pathologise childhood and youth we will fail to understand their experiences and recognise the clues these hold for adults who are concerned about their welfare. We need to draw on the skills and knowledge of young people to create strategies for digital media literacy for the whole community.

So imagine this: an army of young people trained in designing and delivering one-to-one social networking and cybersafety education to concerned parents in charge of a virtual high school for adults. What better way to ensure that parents have an intimate understanding of the kinds of things young people do online; a sense of why young people are so enthusiastic about social networking; a genuine familiarity with the technology; and a set of technical skills for ensuring their children can stay safe online? Want to sign up? Stay tuned.

Dr Amanda Third and Dr Philippa Collin are Research Program Leaders of the Cooperative Research Centre for Young People, Technology and Wellbeing.

Along with Dr Ingrid Richardson (Murdoch University), Professor Natalie Bolzan (University of Western Sydney) and Ms Kitty Rahilly (Inspire Foundation), they were joint authors of the Cooperative Research Centre for Young People, Technology and Wellbeing's reports on 'Intergenerational attitudes towards social networking and cybersafety' and 'Literature review of the benefits of social networking' http://www.interactivemediarelease.com/ogilvy/yawcrc.