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On the 9th February 2016, millions across the UK and globally will be celebrating Safer Internet Day. Coordinated in the UK by the UK Safer Internet Centre, the day is a great opportunity to talk to young people about the safe and positive use of technology

For Safer Internet Day 2016 the UK Safer Internet Centre is hoping to build on the successes and momentum of the 2015 campaign, which was supported by over 850 UK schools and organisations, reaching 25% of 11 – 16s. Most importantly the day had a huge impact with a third (32%) of 11-16s changing something about the way that they use the internet after hearing about Safer Internet Day!

This year’s theme is ‘Play your part for a better internet!’ and provides an opportunity for schools to make the most of the positive opportunities offered online, whilst giving young people the resilience, skills, knowledge and support they need to navigate any online risks they may come across.

Looking for inspiration…

To help schools get involved, the UK Safer Internet Centre has shared a list of ideas inspired by schools who have already registered as Safer Internet Day supporters:

Run a competition in school. For example, Arundel C of E Primary School are going to be running a poster competition for SID2016.

Display the Safer Internet Day posters in your school (coming soon!)

Get creative: why not encourage pupils to produce an app, game or video. Sparken Hill Academy are going to produce a Radio Show and TV Show for the day!

Help spread the word by promoting the day on social media, through your website or newsletter, or by contacting local press to let them know what you are doing for the day

Get young people to take the lead. For example, Loughton School are going to have an assembly run by their Digital Leaders, and schools last year brought together older pupils with young pupils to help in the lessons.

Reach out to parents using the Safer Internet Day parent pack, which includes a template letter, resources and a ready-to-use presentation (coming soon!) Why not invite them along to an assembly where they can hear directly from pupils?

Start celebrating Safer Internet Day now!

Display the Safer Internet Day banner or logo on your school website, and link to the UK Safer Internet Centre at www.saferinternet.org.uk.

Join the 65 organisations that have already registered as a Safer Internet Day supporters by sharing what you’re doing for Safer Internet Day and submitting your logo to the Safer Internet Day Supporters list.

To stay up to date:

Find out more at www.saferinternetday.org.uk
Join the conversation at #SID2016
Subscribe to UK Safer Internet Centre newsletter

Don't forget, you can also take part in the E-safety Support, E-safety Tips competition - Click here for competition details.

Our partners at Point2Protect discuss how device monitoring can provide vital intelligence to help improve e-safety education

Some commentators suggest that monitoring software is a bad thing, used only to spy on young people, intruding into their privacy, and that all we really need to do to keep them safe is talk to them about the dangers they face in the online world.

At Point2Protect, we disagree. We believe that technology can play an important part in any e-safety strategy, providing vital intelligence and understanding which can then lead to better informed engagement.

So, what can technology show you and how can it be used to help keep children and young people safer? Let’s take a tour of the Qustodio technology we use at Point2Protect, as an example of the type of monitoring and moderation you could be using.

The Qustodio technology works at a device level, which means that you need to install it on each device you want to monitor, whether it’s a laptop, a tablet or a smartphone. Once you’ve done this, you register each device to your Qustodio account and then specific data is sent to your secure online dashboard, wherever that device is used.

To see a larger version of the sample screenshots, simpy click on each image

When you sign in to the Qustodio dashboard, you’ll arrive at a page that provides a quick summary of how the devices registered to this profile have been used recently. A profile contains a set of rules you want applied to the devices registered to it. So a school might have a profile for all Year 7 devices, while a parent might have a different profile for each of their children. This enables the rule set to be appropriate to the age of the children being monitored.

The example page here is showing activity from a Windows laptop, an iPad and an Android smartphone over a 30 day period. You can see that it reports on categories of use, such as surfing news web sites, as well as specific applications such as Microsoft Outlook.

Scrolling further down this first summary page shows a word cloud and then three columns. The word cloud is really useful, as it shows the search terms used on all the monitored devices over the last 30 days. This provides a simple and immediate insight into areas of interest and will quickly highlight anything that might need to be followed up.

Below the word cloud, the three columns show the most popular apps being used, the web sites being frequently visited and the top contacts (I’ve hidden the third column detail deliberately). By clicking on any content in these columns you can immediately apply a filter. So, for example, if you decide that Facebook isn’t appropriate for the eight year old children using these devices, you can instantly block it in both the app and web site columns. This rule will then apply across all the devices registered to this profile.

The third column shows contact to a smartphone from calls, text messages, Twitter and Facebook. We don’t delve any further into these contacts by, for example, reading their text messages or recording calls, as we feel this would be too intrusive. So it’s possible to see who children are in regular contact with and so judge whether these contacts are appropriate, but the content of these conversations remains private.

Beyond the summary level, for each of the main activity areas (app usage, web browsing, social activity, etc.) there’s a more detailed view of all usage – for example, the timeline of all web activity shown here. This enables you to see minute-by-minute detail on web sites being visited or YouTube videos being viewed.

Another feature that’s particularly popular with parents is geolocation, which can pop up a Google map showing where a smartphone is at any time. This is also helpful for schools to keep tabs on any mobile devices like tablets that the students may use on a 1-2-1 basis.

In an ideal world, schools will be working closely with parents to ensure that children are being protected wherever they are and not just when on the school premises. One Qustodio feature that immediately appeals to parents is the smartphone Panic Button. When pressed, this sends a text or email message to the key account contact informing them that the child feels unsafe and then showing details of their current location.

All the filtering and moderation functions of Qustodio are controlled from the single Rules tab. Here you can manage web sites by category, or select specific web sites to allow or stop. You can also allow or disable specific apps, or set up time limits for each day’s use of certain apps. All the controls in Qustodio, and we’ve only seen a few of these here, are designed to be easy to use for the non-technical.

You can even create a schedule for all the devices registered to this profile in the account. So, for example, you could stop all devices from working after 10pm on a school night, or from working outside school hours. Once you’ve established the rule set for a profile, you can check-in to the dashboard when you wish, or set Qustodio to email a weekly report to you, or to parents.

Clearly Qustodio is a very powerful tool to provide both schools and parents with a clearer understanding of how the children and young people in their care are experiencing the online world. The understanding of it enables better, more targeted conversations to take place, as well as highlighting areas where extra support or teaching may be necessary.

We would emphasise that technology like Qustodio should be seen as a piece in the jigsaw of effective e-safety and not a solution in itself. At Point2Protect we believe that it’s absolutely critical to follow up understanding with engagement and education, and we provide content and resources to support that approach, including the excellent E-Safety Support service on this web site.

However, one thing is certain. If monitoring technology such as Qustodio is being used as part of an effective, wide-ranging, community-wide e-safety strategy, we will all be less likely to hear either schools or parents saying, in the wake of a serious incident, that they had no way of knowing what the children and young people in their care had been doing online in recent months. That surely has to be a good thing.

We are delighted to announce that Point2Protect will be offering a prize as part of the E-safety Support, Safer Internet Day Competition. Each of the UK category winners will receive a 100 device licence for their school for a year. Click here for competition details.

Is the mental health of young people being adversely affected by Social Media?

Kate Winslet has recently been very vocal about how social media is banned in her household. A mother herself, she has openly said that in her opinion, the unhealthy obsession of thinness and the media's idea of beauty leaves her in no doubt that it causes women (and girls especially) to suffer low self esteem and potential mental health issues. Controversially she has also gone further in this argument by stating that parents are losing control and that smart phones should be confiscated off teenagers for good.

She is able to put her money where her mouth is too as she has a clause written into her L'Oreal contract preventing them from airbrushing or retouching her photos. In 2003 she bitterly complained very publicly about how GQ magazine in her words 'reduced the width of her legs by a third' on the front cover of the magazine. She flies the flag for the representation of 'real women' (as she puts it) and it's her opinion that social media has encouraged girls to fashion themselves for the purpose of near strangers to 'like' their pictures.

I share her concerns to an extent. I conducted a survey recently through an online mums group with 4000 users. I really wanted to hear real life stories from parents about whether they agree they are losing a battle against the draw of social media sites and if they felt deep down that it is adversely affecting their teenagers lives.

It's difficult to admit you should be doing something when you're not. All parents know too much online time is never a good thing. The results of my questionnaire reflected this. Nearly all parents agreed that their teens spend far too much time on devices and that any sort of phone amnesty was met with strong resistance and disdain. Parents of girls were very keen to identify a lack of advice and guidance on the subject and it was obvious that they felt they needed more information about the risks to childrens mental health. They were shocked at the amount of apps dedicated to photo manipulation too - they spoke of teens being open about desiring comments and likes and gaining the maximum number of followers as possible.

Other concerns were voiced about saturation of social media 24 hours a day, online bullying and general spitefulness toward each other causing distress and anxiety (not to mention the affect this has on learning and taking up precious time at school trying to pick apart online disputes).

This concurs with a Daily Mail story recently that had the headline 'children glued to Facebook are twice as likely to suffer mental health problems'. They claim 56% of kids spend more than 3 hours a day on such sites. Parents biggest concern was how they noticed their child's mood altered during or after usage. Large numbers of families stated that there were marked changes in attitude and distress according to what was posted by viewers. Worrying information. To kids of the 80's like me it’s definitely something we find hard to relate to as growing up in a non technological world now seems very simple, innocent and appealing. So, as our first generation digital natives mature, are we yet to see the true consequences of their excessive social media exposure?

According to a national survey conducted in the US, the research provides a more positive outlook. Their findings illustrate teenagers are using social media for much more positive reasons. Headline statistics show teenagers aged 13-18 are sourcing health information online from social media sites that positively influenced them to change their behaviour about diet, exercise and well being. Far from technology being a catalyst for anxiety and depression, instead it was a self help tool for them that made a difference.

Apps and sites have cottoned onto teenagers growing interest in healthy living and it seems that it is the reference of choice for 67% of young people. It also seemed that young people use it as an ongoing support network, using social media as an instrument to aid continuing success. They report to enjoying online friendships from empathic young people, especially about issues such as bullying, eating disorders and obesity. One of the most popular online searches was not surprisingly to do with sex and relationships. Being an SRE teacher myself, I know and understand the reasons why young people seek information online. Every time I ask the question ' please put your hand up if you talk to your parents or teachers about sex?' ...the tumbleweed blows through the classroom. I can see the appeal of looking up intimate information in private and anonymously and without judgement. So for that reason I can safely say that websites such as Bish and Brook prevent a lot of teenagers contracting STI's or keep them safe from unwanted pregnancy.

So, does this information infer that it's all about developing a healthier relationship with social media and not ruling your life by it? Teenagers, by the very fact they are teenagers will lean on the side of rebellion, push boundaries, take risks, show a lack of self control at times and perhaps an inability to truly understand consequences for actions. So again the way forward seems to lie in educating young people about the pitfalls and challenging the notion that it should rule our lives or define us as people.