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Marc Fisher - In Cyberspace, Everyone Can Hear You Scream - washingtonpost.com

“It used to be you could have an inappropriate or rude conversation with someone, and it would stay private,” says Ron McClain, director of the Parkmont School in the District and the parent of teenagers in the Montgomery County schools. “There’s a much fuzzier line between public and private now. This is a case where the technology has outpaced our ability to cope with its effects. As parents, we’re way behind.”

In what possible way was the fact of being able to have an ill-tempered, rude, abusive conversation in private a good thing?  Personally I find no fault with the student in this and all with the spouse.  You cannot respond to a student in that way…ever.  It’s not acceptable, it’s irresponsible, and in this case with it being left on a home answering machine, stupid.  What kind of an example is being set by this?  Perhaps the glaring light of the internet will focus now on the correct behaviors and make people think twice before roaring off on their own emotional tirades when students are involved.

Here’s some excerpt from a fascinating article about the perception many kids have about adults they know entering their world of Facebook, MySpace, and social networking:

Gary Rudman, a California-based
youth market researcher, has heard the complaints. He regularly
interviews young people who think it’s “creepy” when an older person —
we’re talking someone they know — asks to join their social network as
a “friend.” It means, among other things, that they can view each
others’ profiles and what they and their friends post.

“It would be like a 40-year-old attending the prom or a frat party,” Rudman says. “It just doesn’t work.”

Better yet, how about this:

Lauren Auster-Gussman, a freshman at Juniata College in Pennsylvania,
says it’s particularly awkward when one of her parents’ friends asks to
join her social network. She thinks Facebook should only be used by
people younger than, say, 40.

“I mean, I’m in college,” she says. “There are bound to be at least
a few drunken pictures of me on Facebook, and I don’t need my parents’
friends seeing them.”

The question becomes how do we handle it?  Like this?:

Sue Frownfelter, a 46-year-old mom in Flint, Mich.,
thinks it’s less of an issue for parents who discover technology with —
or even before — their children. Among other things, she has a blog,
uses Twitter and has a Chumby, a personal Internet device that displays anything from news and weather to photos and eBay auctions.

Her children, ages 9 and 11, begged her to allow them to have a MySpace page, because she does. Instead, she suggested Imbee.com, a social networking site for kids that allows parental monitoring.

It’s a tough area with no clear answers.  As I’ve posted before, it’s all about building the trusting relationship between your children and you and finding the happy medium that works for both.  I have a Facebook account and I am on my daughters account as a friend and she is on mine.  It was part of our original agreement of her being able to sign up for Facebook.  While I can use it to see what she has posted and what she’s sharing, the purpose is more to show a mutual respect of watching out for each other.

Youth vs. adults in gadget wars - Yahoo! News

I’ve been struggling for a while with how to leverage rememberthemilk.com for my tasks that aren’t once and done but have a “back-and-forth” component to them.  For example:  I create a task saying “Call Bob”.  When I call Bob he’s not there so I leave a message.  Do I need to complete the first task and create a new one?  I used to until I started doing this:

1. Open the Notes tab on the task and immediately create a new note showing I left a message for Bob.  The note is automatically time and date stamped.
2. Add a tag called “waitingon”.  This lets me filter all those tasks I am waiting on something from someone else.

That’s it.  Now I can keep doing that for as long as the task takes to be resolved and still keep track of the status of it as I go.  Oh happy day!

After watching the Frontline special on “Growing up online” I’ve come to realize the core of the issues, whether it’s social networking, cyberbullying, stalkers, or any other forms of nastiness boil down to one thing…trust.

We can spend all our money and time building moats and walls around our children, screening their friends, and spying on their every move but it will be to no avail. Kids are far smarter about technology than even we give them credit and will find the ways necessary to access what they want. Take basic precautions but better is the time spent building the trusting relationships with your kids so they are comfortable sharing their online world with you. If you don’t understand something and they do, ask them to teach you. If you don’t know, find out. They’re your kids after all…what else do you have to do but spend time and money investing in their welfare and well-being.

Teachers are in the same circumstance. Often we spend more time with the kids than the parents do during the week. Don’t be the 30-year tenured dinosaur reveling in your technical illiteracy. You may not know it all, but you do know how to communicate with kids. Help them to feel comfortable communicating with you.

I watched the Frontline show with my 15 year old daughter (I highly recommend everyone watch it with a teenager for a realistic perspective) and at the end when the one kid said he would not give his mother his Facebook password I asked her “So why do you give me your usernames and passwords when I ask?” I half expected the answer, “Because I have to.” The real answer was…”Because I trust you.”