A new virtual reality | Teens and Technology Series Part I

Facebook and cell phones are the communication vehicles of today’s teenagers.

While educators are trying to find ways to integrate technology into the classroom to prepare students for the real world, principals and teachers are also trying to navigate the tricky situations created by kids who use technology to talk to one another that bleed into relationships both inside and outside the classroom.

Social media sites, cell phones and increased access to technology with less supervision have created conversations parents and educators didn’t have a decade ago or even five years ago when MySpace was at the height of its popularity.

The lost art of conversation

Michelle Bennett, Maple Valley Police Chief, wrote her doctoral dissertation on cyberbullying and speaks often on the topic at schools and conferences locally and around the country.

In an email interview she cited an example of how teens communicate today.

“A friend was telling me the other day that she dropped her son off to have a ‘date’ for a walk with a girl, and that the boy and girl got out of the car at the park, and they both immediately sat texting each other instead of walking,” Bennett wrote. “So goes the latest in social media and interacting with each other. Many  — including adults now — find it easier to send a text via cell phone or a Facebook message than to speak face to face. There seems to be less energy and emotional output in communicating with a inanimate object — a screen — then having to speak face to face.”

Maple Valley couple Jason and Kelli Krafsky tackled the concept of how married couples can be members of Facebook without it negatively affecting their relationship in a book called “Facebook and Your Marriage,” which was published in April 2010.

The Krafskys have expanded the discussion to how social media affects all relationships on their sites www.techlationships.com and www.socialmediacouple.com. And as parents of teens they have personal experience with the phenomenon.

“Facebook’s surge in popularity has radically changed how kids interact with one another,” Jason Krafsky wrote in an email interview. “Facebook allows teenagers to stay connected with a lot more people in less time, and to share experiences with others virtually through uploaded pics and updates. But between texting and Facebook, teens have 24/7 access to one another, and have a virtual, real-time GPS to know the whereabouts and activities of anyone they’re Facebook friends with. The more active a kid is on Facebook means a lot less personal privacy and a lot more security risks for that teen (and their family).”

Experts say social media may be eroding our interpersonal skills, explained Allan Kush, deputy executive director of wiredsafety.org. Kush is based out of Seattle.

“It’s altered not just kids,” Kush said. “Everybody socializes in a very dramatic way almost to the point where some psychologists say they are losing their people skills because they’re interacting electronically. They’re very clumsy in person. Especially with the young people, tweeners, teenagers and even people into their 20s who have grown up on this. To them, this is the norm.”

For Madison Belmondo, a senior at Kentwood High, her cell phone is not a must have and she even thinks she could live without texting.

“My parents are kind of old fashioned,” Bellmond said. “They would rather I not have a cell phone. I mainly use it for texting and calling. Texting, for me, it’s nice but I could live without it.”

In the Kent School District students are not supposed to use their cell phones during class but Belmondo explained it is OK to text between classes and at lunch. Phone calls during the school day are not allowed. There are consequences if students violate the cell phone usage rules.

“One of my teachers, he had this count on his board, I think he had 20 cell phones that he had taken away during the year,” Belmondo said.

While Belmondo may not feel reliant on her phone, fellow Kentwood senior Taylor Yousoofian described her cell phone differently.

“It’s my baby,” she said. “I can’t go a day without it. I fall asleep texting.”

Those with smartphones, Yousoofian said, are even more attached to their phones because that’s their connection to, well, everything.

Kentwood junior Kayla Tingstad said her phone is a jack-of-all-trades device.

“It’s an iPhone, it’s my iPod, my email, my Facebook,” Tingstad said. “It’s got a lot of things on it.”

And while many kids have cell phones it doesn’t mean they actually talk on them anymore.

According to a Nielsen study conducted in 2010, 43 percent of teens said they asked for a cell phone so they could text, whereas in 2008 more than 40 percent got cell phones for safety reasons.

Teens, according to the study published in October 2010, send and receive on average 3,339 texts a month.

TRENDING TOPICS

Adults are seeing a number of trends in relation to cell phone use and social media among teens.

Bennett, the police chief in Maple Valley, wrote that “sexting has become a huge issue.”

“Now a popular gig is for boys to get the girl to send them a picture partially (or with no) clothed,” Bennett wrote. “How interesting that now a girl may be sitting in the corner wondering why that boy did not ask for her nude picture. What girls must understand is that once they send that photo they no longer have control of that image. That image can go viral. It can be posted on anyone’s website and can be shown to every other student in school.”

Heidi Maurer, principal at Cedar Heights Middle School in Covington, faces a number of challenges related to cell phones.

“You put a school in lock down because you have an emergency situation and (the students have) emailed, called and texted their parents before I’ve even finished the lockdown announcement,” Maurer said. “The speed at which communication happens because the kids have cell phones is absolutely amazing.”

And because kids can spread information quickly using their phones and Facebook a major issue comes in.

“They’re able to communicate so quickly they don’t stop and read before they hit send,” Maurer said. “I’m not sure we’re doing a good job of teaching them that.”

Students in the Tahoma School District are also expected to put their cell phones away during class but Diane Fox, assistant principal at Tahoma High, said administrators still deal with a number of violations.

“We see increased visits to the bathroom in order to use their phones,” Fox said.  “We took a pretty hard line. We expect students to be engaged in the classroom.”

The first offense is a warning to the student and on the second offense the phone is confiscated.

And Fox said she’s experienced some frustrating exchanges with teens.

“Kids will come to talk to me about a college search,” Fox said. “And they will get a text and they will answer it in the middle of the conversation.”

Teens don’t have that skill set because technology is such an integral part of their lives.

Fox said she explains to her students there are appropriate times and inappropriate times to use the phone, to return a text, to search the web and whenever a student is disciplined for a cell phone violation the parents are notified, as well, so the message continues at home.

And then there’s the way Facebook is spilling into the school house.

“Facebook is more dangerous,” Fox said. “Cyberbullying has become more rampant. We generally handle issues that occur in school, but, now as administrators, when a is student is being harassed on Facebook outside of school and has to walk into school with that in his metaphorical backpack… we get into some issues because it’s impacting our educational environment.”

Maurer, principal at Cedar Heights, noted that Facebook is acceptable under certain circumstances.

“It’s important to understand that technology is good in moderation and with the knowledge of how to use,” Maurer said. “I would say it’s OK for kids to have a Facebook account, however, their parents should be their friend and they should monitor on a regular basis what is happening and be prepared to shut it down. Facebook is fine… until they make a poor decision with it that impacts others in a negative manner.

“They post things on Facebook they would never say to someone’s face. And it affects school and we’re having to deal with that. Or something happens at school and Facebook becomes a public forum. We’re finding that we have to moderate what’s happening on Facebook because they’re spilling it into the classroom.”

Yousoofian, the senior at Kentwood, said she didn’t understand why adults freaked out about MySpace five years ago because Facebook can open teens up to more issues.

“I’ve seen people get into an argument and then go on Facebook and say, ‘We’re no longer friends,’” Yousoofian said. “Some people find it to be entertainment. They like that drama. It all depends on the people involved. People will gang up on them if they believe the same thing then it will just continue the bullying and the attack.”

And popular students, Yousoofian noted, will always win in those kinds of online altercations.

She pointed out a specific example of three of her classmates who were really good friends.

“One of them posted something and he was just joking around,” Yousoofian said. “They started arguing and attacking each other on Facebook. Everyone just fed off it, watching their friendship deteriorate. And everyone talked about it for weeks afterward.”

Kelli Krafsky wrote in an email about the trends she and her husband, Jason, are seeing which includes Facebook profile hijacking.

“Kids forget to sign off their Facebook profile at a public place or at a friends’ house,” Kelli Krafsky wrote. “They have handed over their public profile, their reputation and their privacy to someone else.”

 

BULLYING GOES ONLINE

The Krafskys define cyberbullying as “when a person sends or posts messages, information or images intended to hurt, embarrass or intimidate another person. It can be a private message, such as email, IM, or text, or a public message — post on a social network, a page on a website, or an uploaded picture on a site.”

Kelli Krafsky cited a highly publicized incident that happened among a trio of middle-school girls in Issaquah.

Two of the girls hijacked the profile of the third student.

“Unfortunately, the two other girls no longer liked the girl and began posting explicit messages through her Facebook,” Kelli Krafsky wrote. “They changed the password so the girl was helpless to regain control of her Facebook. The whole situation escalated way out of control and now there’s two middle school girls in Issaquah with a criminal record.”

Jason Krafsky went on to explain that seemingly good kids can get involved in cyber crimes especially because the mob mentality can happen so easily on Facebook.

“Earlier this year, six middle school girls were arrested for their Facebook actions,” he wrote. “The girls decided to get back at some of the teachers they didn’t like. They set up a Facebook Group called “Attack a Teacher Day” and invited hundreds of people. A parent saw the group invite and notified school officials. They were shocked when they discovered that several straight A-students and student leaders planned the whole thing. Many of the news stories of kids being arrested for cyber bullying and cyberstalking involve ‘good’ students and likeable kids.”

Kush of wiredsafety.org noted some of the pitfalls of social media for young people.

“They still lack the maturity to know how to interact on those various social media sites,” Kush said. “They feel like they can say anything about the uncool kids without impunity and without any forethought about the emotional damage this may cause. Some people have been driven to suicide that have been disparaged not only on Facebook but on blogs… and other sites where people have free and ready access to have what is mostly baseless accusations. Because all of this stuff is anonymous a lot of them don’t even know who their tormentor is.”

Kush stated cyberbullies have two attitudes.

“One, they don’t know the impact this would have on people because they think this is funny,” he said. “The other one, which is disconcerting in my book, if they’re not tough enough to take this stuff online then they’re pansies anyway. So, they escalate because they’re getting the reaction they’ve been seeking.”

And while educators are well aware of the problems cyberbullying creates, Kush has concerns about parents who may not be aware of the consequences of how plugged in kids are today.

“You’ve got a largely uneducated parentdom that doesn’t really know what their kids are doing online,” he said. “MySpace had come and gone and some parents hadn’t even known what happened. What’s MySpace? What’s Facebook? They’re not involved with their kids and when they do it’s because there’s a crisis involved. They seek the silver bullet solution to make this go away. That’s the type of stuff we’re fighting.”

Yousoofian and Belmondo’s parents are the exception to the rule, though.

“I tried to delete my mom (on Facebook),” Yousoofian said. “That was not smart.”

Belmondo said her father is fairly tech savvy.

“My dad has it set up that when I post my status (on Facebook) it beeps on his phone,” Belmondo said. “I understand where he’s coming from about how jobs look at your Facebook, colleges look at you Facebook.”

Belmondo’s dad urges her to not use obscenities on Facebook and also tells her to delete any posts by her friends that contain swear words.

But those can be the least of a teen’s worries on Facebook.

All three of the Kentwood students, Belmondo, Yousoofian and Tingstad, explained they’re careful about what they post and who they add on Facebook so they can avoid the drama and cyberbullying.

Tingstad aid her rule is if she wouldn’t go up and say hello and chat with someone in the grocery store then they don’t belong on her friend list.

Yousoofian has become more careful about whose friend requests she accepts.

“I used to accept people who we had mutual friends,” she said. “I started realizing it’s those creepers who are just looking to meet girls. I want to get to know them before I add them.”

Belmondo views Facebook as an opportunity to get to know her fellow Conquerors which makes sense given Kentwood’s size of more than 2,000 students in ninth through 12th grade.

“I look at their profile,” Belmondo said. “If they go to Kentwood and they have enough friends in common then I add them because I want to get to know them. I don’t get the people who try to add you and you have no friends in common.”

Fox, the assistant principal at Tahoma High, said a post made by a student at midnight trickles into school.

“Facebook is not just one on one,” Fox said. “I am now broadcasting it to every person who has access to your Facebook and that can be up to 1,000 people. These kids make friends with friends of friends and someone they met once at a mall so those networks are huge and that’s what kids bring into school with them.”

Cyberbullying is brought to Fox’s attention in multiple ways.

“A kid comes to me and says, ‘Ms. Fox, this is happening to me,” or a friend comes to me or parents say, ‘Look what’s happening to my child’ or another child,’” she said. “That then becomes an investigation because we have a law that requires us to deal with harassment and bullying. I’ve had to have discussions with parents because of postings on Facebook. They say, ‘Well, that’s private.’”

But, because of a state law that required all school district to adopt or amend policies and procedures that incorporated a revised policy that prohibits the harassment, intimidation or bullying of any student in school or online.

Washington state is one of more than three dozen states to have a cyberbullying law on the books.

“When you’re typing on a screen there’s a safety net, I’m not seeing any pain, I’m seeing that my words hurt…,” Fox said. “I don’t have to face the consequences of what I say through a text or a Facebook post. These words do not evaporate which allows you to be tracked which leads to discipline issues.”

Fox said, as a parent of a teen, she understands this phase of life can be an isolating one for moms and dads.

“When kids reach the teen years we start to not talk with each other about the issues around our teens… some of it can be embarrassing,” she said. “We don’t want to admit that our kids are struggling. We don’t know what’s normal and not normal, we rely on our kids to tell us everybody is doing it, until we get a call from the assistant principal at Tahoma High School. For the parent, you’re not alone, we’re here to help.”

 

Next week in the second part of the series prevention of cyberbullying by both kids and adults will be examined, as well as etiquette between kids and adults online. In addition tips on what young people should avoid posting and saying online will be offered as well as a look at how that seemingly innocuous tweet, photo from a party or status update could keep a teen from getting a job or into college among other consequences.