Tag Archives: teenagers

Guilty

Should Social Media be an Adult-Only Zone?

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Every so often, I encounter another teenage nightmare unfolding on the internet. It starts out innocent, but as the social media machine takes over, it's an avalanche that threatens to bury everyone alive. And I sit on the sidelines, watching all the chaos as society spirals down into another hate-fest.

For years, I've been obsessed with how social media has taken such a hold of our everyday lives. The writer in me is watching every worst-case scenario play out within the digital world, and I keep asking how it could get worse. (Because as any writer can tell you, it can always get worse.)

In the beginning, social media was a brilliant concept. It was a place where people could connect with each other and form working relationships with people who were on the other side of the planet. But as its popularity grew and more people flocked to various platforms, the social dynamics changed. In some cases, the interactions descended into a toxic cesspit needing a HazMat suit with breathing apparatus to even enter. At which point, another platform would seem to spring forth with the promise of a safe-and-inclusive environment.

Regardless of what social media has become, social media and the internet form a huge part of the world we now live in. My children have never known a life where the internet didn't exist—and my oldest is now in his 20s.

Two decades. So much of our world has changed in those two decades.

So, when I see the teenage nightmares unfolding on social media, it's not surprising to me that there is an outcry of people wanting to make social media an adult-only zone. I can understand where the viewpoints are coming from that want to classify social media usage in the same way we do alcohol and driving. But as the number of these negative events grow—sometimes, resulting in the death of yet another teen—there is only one thought that goes through my mind:

Where are the parents teaching their children how to socially behave on the internet?

If you're willing to stick around, I'll do the best I can to explain why I feel that the deplorable nature of social media is actually the responsibility of parents and how I went about teaching my children to cope with the social media cesspit.

It's an interesting tale, involving Scouts, my children, my writing, and my obsession with social media and online behavior.

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LGBTQ+ Terms: A Glossary for the Unknowing Parent

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Recently, I decided to binge watch the Netflix series of Sex Education—all three seasons of it, and I'm looking forward to the fourth season (which has been announced as going to happen). It's a racy show that explores the concepts of gender and sexual identity while at the same time reminding us that we are all human. And it is seriously funny.

I will admit that I still see Gillian Anderson as Scully from X-Files, but in every single one of the characters on the show, I can see someone that I know in person.

The show is aimed at teenagers, primarily those 16 years old and older. But if you have never seen the show, let me warn you now that there is open-door sex throughout the show, including in the opening scene of the premiere episode. But the show is not about sex. It's about understanding who we are as human beings, and yes, sex is a part of that.

This post uses medically correct terminology for human reproductive organs. If you are not comfortable with that, then you can stop reading right here.

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Advice out of the mouths of babes

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Some years ago, my daughter and I were having a conversation about what it was she would like to do for the coming year. She's a dancer, and at the time, she was interested in the idea of turning her dancing into a career. She was only 13 at the time, but even then, she knew that if she wanted to go professional, she was going to have to work hard to be the best she could be—and some.

The performing arts are just as competitive as the publishing industry, if not more so.

Anyway, I had received an email from her dance school about auditions for a competition dance team. She had never been part of a competition team, but she was being invited specifically to audition. When I asked her if she was interested, she hummed and hawed for a bit, then she said something that hit a little closer to home than she realized.

"I'm never going to make it if I don't take a risk and put myself out there."

BAM! The fist hit me in the gut, and she never lifted a finger. She was talking about her own dreams and her own aspirations, yet her words carried a message that was powerful.

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We Let Them In: Is Privacy Dead?

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Protecting oneself on the internet is something that I'm highly passionate about. There are so many ways to get into big trouble within our online interactions that I've made it a personal mission to understand the true nature of the dangers out there.

This is the world that my children are growing up in. They have never known a life when the internet didn't exist. Social media in its various forms has become a massive part of the way they're expected to interact with the world at large, and it's my job, as their mother, to ensure that they know how to navigate this internet-based world safely.

With the increase in internet dependency within our daily lives, there are certain questions that have started to leak to the surface of my consciousness. Almost everything that we do is now online, with very few exceptions.

Sure, you have social media, YouTube and blogs, and TV through the internet means that we can watch what we want to watch when we want to watch it. However, you also have online banking, and you can buy your groceries online. I can pay for my car registration and file my taxes online. I order replacement gas bottles for the house through an app on my phone and I can report issues regarding water leaks or other hazards in my neighborhood using a different app.

My children are expected to submit their homework assignments online. They are even required to sit major exams using online tools. When they were still in high school, I got their report cards sent to me through an online website.

My husband gets his payslips online, and I get paid by overseas clients through online services. Even my royalty checks come in through online payments.

Everything about our world has shifted to online.

New Zealand, as a whole, has become a near cashless society, with EftPos found almost everywhere you go. Those payments go through the internet. Sure, I do have some cash in my wallet, but not much. Everything of importance is bought and paid for using online means.

Yes, this shift to an internet-based society has, for the most part, made our lives easier, but has it really made it safer?

How has this push to doing everything online affected our sense of privacy and security?

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The Strangers We Let See Facebook

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It's been a while since I've written on my personal blog. This has been for a few reasons, the biggest of which I've been focusing on my fictional writing, trying to finish my crime novel.

Well, the draft of my crime novel is complete, and it currently in the hands of a developmental editor. While I wait patiently for his comments (and trust me, it has been a patient wait, as I'm not ready to delve back into edits yet), I thought I'd turn my attention back to something else that I'm just as passionate about.

Protecting ourselves on the internet.

For years, on the Editor's Blog on Black Wolf Editorial, I've been writing about some of the hidden traps associated with working online. Back in February, I decided to start a series here on my personal blog that delves into the mind of the bad guys who use the internet to prey on the innocent.

In the first post, I wrote about Twitter and how it's actually what we post that can be more of the security risk. Today, I want to look at some of the settings on Facebook, things that many of us never bothered to consider a risk.

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