Tip menjaga anak di Media Sosial
Tidak ada yang menyangkal bahwa media sosial telah menjadi bagian penting dari budaya manusia. Tapi bagaimana orang tua mengetahui akan cerita horor media sosial yang mereka dengar dari anak-anak muda itu nyata atau dimaksudkan untuk memberikan rasa takut atau menarik perhatian dari orang dewasa yang pada umumnya agak gaptek?
Sebuah studi baru-baru ini oleh American Academy of Pediatrics menemukan bahwa penggunaan media sosial adalah kegiatan yang paling banyak dilakukan anak-anak dan dewasa saat ini, dengan 22 persen remaja masuk ke situs media sosial favorit mereka lebih dari 10 kali sehari. Ini meliputi media sosial sebagai situs jejaring sosial seperti Facebook, situs game seperti Club Penguin, situs video seperti YouTube, blog dan aplikasi seperti Snapchat.
Studi AAP juga menemukan bahwa media sosial yang digunakan oleh remaja dan remaja memiliki efek baik positif maupun negatif terhadap pertumbuhan emosional dan sosial mereka.
Joseph Mazer, associate professor dan associate chair dari departemen studi di Clemson University, mengetuai social media listening center di perguruan tinggi tersebut. Dia setuju ada bahaya serius bagi kaum muda yang menggunakan media sosial, namun media sosial juga punya banyak kebaikan.
'"Saya pikir media sosial, seperti segala sesuatu dalam kehidupan, memiliki karakteristik positif dan negatif di dalamnya," kata Mazer. "Ya, ada manfaat di media sosial dalam hal membangun hubungan dan mendorong hubungan interpersonal yang kuat dengan teman-teman yang lokal, teman yang jarak jauh, serta anggota keluarga yang jaraknya jauh."
Rick Floyd, keamanan informasi untuk Greenville County Schools dan mantan anggota Departemen Kepolisian Kota Greenville, mengatakan bahwa dia tidak ingin terlihat seperti orang yang tidak waras, namun bahaya media sosial telah menjangkau kaum muda. Terserah orang tua apakah mau untuk menjadi lini pertahanan pertama, katanya.
"Sulit bagi banyak orang tua hari ini karena mereka tidak dibesarkan di media sosial, jadi mereka tidak mengerti seberapa parah bahayanya," katanya. "Kebanyakan orang tua takut untuk melakukan dialog itu, tapi anak-anak di kelas tiga, empat dan lima mulai melakukan hubungan sext dan menjadi korban cyberbullying. Hal ini ada di sekolah dasar sekarang. Ini topik yang sangat penting bagi orang tua sekarang ini."
Lantas bagaimana cara orang tua memastikan anak mereka menggunakan media sosial dengan cara yang positif?
Dimulai dengan orang tua
Floyd sering mengunjungi sekolah, dan organisasi lain untuk mendiskusikan topik yang serius dengan orang tua - bagaimana menjaga agar anak-anak bisa online dengan aman.
Baru-baru ini di Bethel Elementary School di Simpsonville, dia menunjukkan video ke kerumunan orang tua yang menunjukkan betapa cepat dan mudahnya menemukan informasi tentang orang muda secara online. Satu video menggambarkan bagaimana orang tua sendiri harus disalahkan karena terlalu banyak berbagi informasi tentang anak-anak mereka dengan mengungkapkan informasi pribadi dalam blog ibu-nya dan Facebook.
Sebagai mantan anggota departemen kepolisian yang mengkhususkan diri dalam kejahatan terhadap anak-anak, Floyd menjelaskan kepada orang tua bahwa dia biasa melakukan penangkapan setiap hari, menangkap predator yang menggunakan Internet yang menargetkan anak-anak.
"Dalam banyak kesempatan saat kami melakukan penangkapan, ada banyak gambar di komputer tersangka yang berasal dari Internet, itu berasal dari Facebook dan tempat-tempat lain, gambar yang mungkin terlihat tidak berdosa oleh anda saat anda mempostingnya, tapi mereka menggunakan gambar itu untuk kepuasan seksual, "kata Floyd.
Seorang ibu mengangkat tangannya. "Katakanlah itu terjadi, dan sebuah gambar sedang online dan mereka mengambil gambar anak dan orang itu ditangkap, apakah polisi kemudian memberitahu orang tua anak itu di foto itu?" dia bertanya.
Rick Floyd, keamanan informasi dari Greenville County
Rick Floyd, keamanan informasi dari Greenville County Schools dan mantan anggota Departemen Kepolisian Kota Greenville, memberikan presentasi kepada orang tua di Bethel Elementary School.
"Anda mungkin tidak pernah tahu," kata Floyd. "Jika ada kaitannya dengan pornografi anak, ya, tapi ada kalanya orang tua mungkin tidak pernah tahu."
Setelah sesi selama satu jam, banyak orang tua tampak terkejut dengan informasi yang mereka terima, termasuk tanda-tanda cyberbullying, bahasa SMS rahasia yang digunakan untuk sexting, dan testimonial video dari pemuda yang telah menjadi korban predator Internet.
"Tidak ada yang benar-benar mengejutkan saya kecuali berapa banyak yang posting di media sosial mempengaruhi anak-anak di kehidupan pribadi mereka," kata Lisa Helvey, ibu tiga anak, termasuk dua di sekolah dasar dan satu di sekolah menengah. "Ini membuka mata seberapa cepat perubahannya, dan sulit untuk tetap berada di puncak, sebagai orang tua yang tidak tumbuh dengan teknologi."
Helvey mengatakan bahwa dia sudah memantau pesan teks anak laki-lakinya yang lebih tua namun berencana untuk lebih berhati-hati dalam mengawasi penggunaan media sosialnya di masa depan.
"Seiring bertambahnya usia, saya pasti perlu lebih waspada," katanya. "Menakutkan."
Floyd mengatakan hanya beberapa tahun yang lalu, ancaman terbesar bagi pemuda online datang melalui Facebook.
"Young people aren't using Facebook anymore," he said. "Parents and grandparents and adults are on Facebook. Now we're seeing the dangers for children on apps like Twitter, YikYak, Snapchat and Instagram."
Floyd recommended parents install apps such as WebWatcher and Net Nanny on their children's phones to monitor their social media behavior.
"They can be installed and your children will never know they're there," he said. "They'll allow you to see everything and to be able to respond immediately if you see sexting or cyberbullying."
Floyd said studies show that 15 percent of youth surveyed admitted to sexting and 25 percent said they had received a sext.
"Don't say, 'My children would never do that' because good kids make mistakes," he said.
He said more and more colleges are monitoring social media when awarding scholarships and considering admissions.
"I've heard of kids whose future looked bright until they got rejected from the college they always wanted to attend because of a picture they posted on Facebook five years ago," Floyd said. "If you wouldn't post it on a billboard on Woodruff Road, you shouldn't post it online."
Cyberbullying
Mazer said although there are positive aspects to using social media, one of the biggest dangers he and his students observe is cyberbullying.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, cyberbullying is the deliberate use of digital media to communicate false, embarrassing or hostile information about another person. It is the most common online risk for all teens today.
"When you talk about cyberbullying, a lot of cyberbullying happens online because of the anonymity factor," Mazer said. "Research tells us people are more likely to do more aggressive things and act more aggressively online when they're able to remain anonymous than they are face to face. That has real implications for parents as they oversee their children's usage of social media."
Floyd said cyberbullying is dangerous because it spreads faster than bullying.
"Kids can't escape it," he said. "They go home, and it's still there."
Clemson University recently received a grant that is allowing Mazer and his colleagues to develop a tool for parents to help combat the problem of cyberbullying.
"We have a social media listening center where we're able to listen in on over 650 million sources of social media conversations as they happen across all mainstream social media outlets," he said. "We're looking across all social media to see how cyberbullying is occurring online and what those messages actually look like, and then using that information to develop the app with some researchers in computer science. We're trying to develop a baseline on how social media is used to carry out cyberbullying attacks and to use that to develop a mechanism to detect and intervene when it happens."
Stay educated
Parents wary of social media shouldn't dismiss the positive benefits, Mazer said. Staying connected with grandparents long distance has never been easier, and when a child's friend moves away, he can now stay in touch.
"I think we, as educators, need to do a good job of integrating social media into the courses we teach in schools, and teaching young people in elementary, junior high, high school, and college about the effective use of social media," he said.
He suggested parents get familiar with the apps and websites their children frequent.
"When we think about the counter arguments to parents educating their children on social media, what comes to mind very quickly is that some parents might not be very technologically savvy," he said. "If a child is being cyberbullied online and a parent is not very proficient in that technology, the likelihood of a parent being able to intervene and stop that kind of behavior and remove their child from that situation is unlikely. It all begins at the education level for everyone."
5 tips for monitoring your child's social media
Rick Floyd, information security for Greenville County Schools and a former member of the Greenville City Police Department, and Joseph Mazer, associate professor and associate chair of the department of studies at Clemson University, offered the following tips for keeping kids safe online.
- Don't allow kids younger than 13 on Facebook. Although the age limit is 13, Facebook has no way to enforce the rule. That's where parents come in.
- Check the privacy settings on your child's phone and apps. Disabling the location services on apps can keep predators from tracking their location.
- Use monitoring apps such as Net Nanny and WebWatcher to track your child's social media behavior.
- Have a discussion. Talk to your children about the positive and negative ways to use social media, and set ground rules.
- Stay educated. Floyd offers seminars year round to help educate parents on the latest apps and websites. Find the list of his seminars online at the website for Greenville County Schools. Under the menu labeled Students & Parents, click Internet Safety Information.
12 popular apps and what they do
These apps are popular among tweens and teens, and also represent opportunity for misuse, according to Rick Floyd, information security for Greenville County Schools.
- ooVoo — A free video chat and instant messaging app for any device. It allows users to make high-quality video calls.
- kik — A free instant messaging app for mobile devices. It allows no phone numbers, only usernames.
- Snapchat — Send text, photos and video to a friend, and unless that person takes a screenshot, the Snap disappears.
- Twitter — Users can tweet or retweet their thoughts or status in 140 characters or less, adding hashtags for more visibility.
- YouTube — A website and application that allows users to share videos with others.
- Periscope — Stream live video to others anywhere in the world using your mobile device.
- YikYak — This app allows users in the same region to post and view text anonymously in a bulletin-board format.
- Instagram — Take and post photos and videos and share them with other users.
- Skout — Find people online locally or globally for dating or friendship.
- 9GAG — Share user-generated humorous photos. It also contains inappropriate content.
- Tinder — Find people to hook up with or date using this app.
- Vine — Watch, create and share short videos that loop.
Sexting language parents should know
According to Rick Floyd, information security for Greenville County Schools, parents should be alarmed if they see the following texts on their children's phones.
NIFOC — Naked in front of computer PIR — Parent in room CU46 — See you for sex 53X — Sex 9 — Parent watching 99 — Parent gone 1174 — Party meeting place THOT — That hoe over there CID — Acid, the drug. Broken — Hungover from alcohol 420 — Marijuana POS — Parent over shoulder SUGARPIC — Suggestive or erotic photo KOTL — Kiss on the lips (L)MIRL — Let's meet in real life PRON — Porn TDTM — Talk dirty to me 8 — Oral sex CD9 — Parents around IPN — I'm posting naked LH6 — Let's have sex WTTP — Want to trade pictures? DOC — Drug of choice TWD — Texting while driving GYPO — Get your pants off KPC — Keeping parents clueless