Skip to main content

Sexting? Blaim Parents and tech companys

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-17853498

Read this artcle on BBC newa about facebook and age limits and I was a little surprised to see it went on to talk about sexting. The stream of the article seems to flow along the lines of. Tech companys have released dangerous tools and should do better to protect people and parents are failing to help their children deal with these modern issues.

Now firstly I agree tech companys should have some level of responsibilty and seeing them invest in prevention advertising would be great (or even better support charities working with young people with this issue). However, its not all their fault. Blaiming parents seems like a particulary easy cop out for the government. That way they get to publicaly acknowledge the problem but dont have to do anything.

No where in this article does it mention the role schools could play in educating young people and the idea of young people taking responsibilty for their actions. I passionatly believe that schools can be the perfect place to make an inmpact on young peoples attitudes and behaviour. Youth clubs equally can be powerful avenues for influencing attitudes not just providing information.

The question of facebook age is interesting. I've lost the exact quote but I'm sure I read Mark Zuckerberg saying he wanted to lower the sign up age but then put in extra security features. I think he said that for younger people they would not have the chance to share publically they could only ever share with friends. Small things like this could make Facebook safer for young people who lie about their age currently.

I think that Facebooks wants the whole family on Facebook so it will find a way to lower the age and restricted accounts may be the way to go. I think parents could get actively involved if they allowed parents to set up the childs facebook page at any age but for however many years maybe until they are 11 they can only interact with their parents and siblings. So a very restricted mini network before they move to a wider network of their friends before finally being able to go public at 16? 18? This wouldnt be perfect but could be better then the current situation of young people lying about their age with 12 year olds pretending to be 17 and connecting with lots of random adults they should not be talking with.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A RSE reading list

Sometimes people ask me what reading I recommend around RSE, so I thought I would put together a bit of a list.  Key (free) articles and reports  Young people’s RSE UK poll  Sex Education Forum (2018) RSE outcome variations due to facilitator differences  Young et al (2018) What do young people think about their school-based sex and relationship education? A qualitative synthesis of young people's views and experiences Pound et al. (2016) Review of sexual abuse in schools and college s Ofsted (2021) National and International RSE Guidance  UNESCO international guidance on RSE  UNESCO (2018) England   Department for Education full guidance on statutory relationships education, relationships and sex education (RSE) and health education  Department for Education (2019) Wales Curriculum for Wales guidance and code for Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE)  (Consultation stage) Welsh Government (2021)  Scotland  Guidance for teachers on the conduct of teaching relationships, sex

Agree - Disagree Sex and Relationship Statements

Today I shared another resource listing the agree disagree statement I often use in Relationship lessons. I find agree disagree activities as a bit of a two edge sword. Sometimes they are great and sometimes they just seem flat.  I think agree/disagree activities work well if young people in the group do not all think the same. The true value in agree/disagree activities is the discussion it can stir up. The discussion is the point where young people learn things and develop their attitudes. The statements need to be crafted to try and divide opinion and stir up this discussion. When the statements do not divide group opinion then rarely will I get a good follow up discussion. The problem is that the statements that work well for one group do not work for another group.  The temptation is to try and pick truly controversial issues but I have had as much success with the historically controversial issues (abortion, porn etc) as the more standard issues (loyalty, respect, condo