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Here at E-safety Support we are delighted to support the Safer Internet Day (SID), organised in the UK by the UK Safer Internet Centre.

The theme for Safer Internet Day 2014 is ‘Let’s create a better internet together’. This theme covers the responsibility that all users have in making the internet a better place. Whether children and young people, parents and carers, educators or social care workers, or indeed industry, decision makers or politicians, everyone has a role to play.

In championing a better internet, the theme recognises the balance between encouraging users to embrace and empowering them to make the most of the positive opportunities offered online, while responding to, dealing with and moving past the negative online.

The internet is such a part of everyday life that it is easy to forget how relatively new the environment is. Consequently it is also easy to be complacent about internet safety; surely our ‘digital native’ youth know what they are doing? But in reality there is an internet knowledge gap and indeed internet safety knowledge gap between the generations. So it is vital that our educators as well as their students are aware of the dangers the enable them to safely benefit from the positives.

It is also important to remember that we as users are contributing to the online environment too, so we also ensure that when we do interact online (as we would in the offline world), that we do so as responsible citizens. Education about cyber antics which can begin innocently but lead onto more serious bullying situations is key.
There are ways in which all users can contribute:

Children and young people can help to create a better internet by being kind and respectful to others online and seeking positive and safe opportunities to create, engage and share online.

Parents and carers can help to create a better internet by maintaining an open and honest dialogue with their children about their online lives, supporting them with their online activity (as appropriate to their age), particularly any concerns and issues, and seeking out positive opportunities to share with their children online. They can help to respond to the negative by modelling positive online behaviours themselves, and by also reporting any inappropriate or illegal content they find.

Educators and social care workers can help to empower children and young people to embrace the positive by equipping them with the digital literacy skills they require for today’s world, and giving them opportunities to use – and create – positive content online. They can help to respond to the negative by supporting youngsters if they encounter problems online, and by giving them the confidence and skills to seek help from others.

Safer Internet Day Resources
E-safety Support has many resources which can help teach, learn and practice online safety for the whole school community, including our Safer Internet Day 2014 Assemblies for primary schools and secondary schools, which are available to download by joining as a E-safety Support Free Member (Premium and Premium Plus members can also download the assemblies from their E-safety Support Dashboard).

There has been much said in the news recently about the tragic consequences of the anonymous comment site Ask.fm – a high profile site popular with teenagers. But what is it about this sort of site that attracts people into making vicious comments about their ‘friends’, peers and indeed colleagues - we must remember that this domain is not exclusively that of today’s youth but also involves adults too.

To try to understand the psychology of this phenomenon, I took a look at another of these sites, which boasts on the home page that the website is “100% anonymous”. I don’t need to register to explore further, just click a button to claim I am over 18. So now I’m in.

I’m now presented with a selection of four recent posts, three of which appear to be about school pupils which is interesting given the age ‘restriction’ and two of the four include some colourful language describing the person in question - well that’s encouraging, now I know what’s expected of me.

So I click the button to post my own ‘gossip’. I’m asked for my email address (mickey.mouse@disney.com it is then) and then I’m free to make up my own gossip (as suggested by the site itself).

Now it gets a bit more serious, I have to tick a box to say that my comment is not about someone under 18 – well I have already seen that that’s been done before, so tick. Next, that it isn’t threatening, pornographic, racist or otherwise objectionable – seen that too, so tick again. Finally that it doesn’t contain private information – OK, I promise.

And that’s it. My disparaging remarks about Pluto and Minnie are there for them and the world to see. Regardless of whether the comments are true or not, they are public and I can’t take them back. But that’s OK surely, because it was anonymous so it’s not really hurting anyone – particularly me right? There will be no repercussions for me and I can always deny it if questioned. It was all too easy.

Perhaps then, it’s the ease and speed at which a comment can be made public that contributes to the impact of this sort of site. Making a spur of the moment comment after a classroom spat (or staffroom spat for that matter), could be regretted moments later, but the damage is already done and can easliy lead to cyber bullying.

It seems that there is no protection given to those on the receiving end. Yes the site has a means of user-moderation, but surely by the time the comment is live and has been seen by just about anyone who is interested, it's too late?

If you have any thoughts on this type of site, we would love to hear from you. Please use the comments section below – we do only ask for your name and comment, but we do moderate all comments before allowing them to be published on the site.

For large swathes of the global population, the notion of whether a person is considered ‘Online’ is somewhat of a redundant question.

The relatively rapid migration from dial-up Internet connection, to perpetually connected broadband and mobile wireless high speed data access has had a radical impact on what it means to be ‘online’.

In the not too distant past, the phrase “Are you online?” was a euphemistic enquiry as to whether or not one had entered in to some kind of contract with an Internet Service Provider.

More recently the same phrase could be a question asking whether a person was actually logged in or connected to any given service at that point in time.

Recently I have seen a trend which has confused things further. It seems that the term ‘Online’ is being used to refer to something that happens through a Web browser as if somehow other platforms interacting with remote services over the Internet are in some way not ‘online’.

For instance, it is now quite common for a TV advert to end with a phrase such as “Order online, or use our smartphone app”. This is quite meaningless. Strictly speaking it is the phone itself that is online i.e. the point of connection, but regardless of this arguably pedantic point, neither the advertiser’s Web site or their App can be used for ordering without being ‘online’.

Does the lack of precision on the use of the term ‘online’ here confuse? Do people think that they are not ‘online’ if they are using an app? Does it matter? Possibly not and maybe the less technical term of being ‘connected’ will suffice.

However, there is a very interesting question about perception exposed here. For instance, although a Web page open within a browser may refresh with updated information from time to time or even in real time while it is open (most in fact do not), closing the browser or navigating away from that site severs the communication.

This is not true of an App. Although not all apps will need to exploit the mechanism, a modern smart phone app once opened is often still 'running' and processing in the background even when you switch your attention to another app. Further, modern smart phones tend to have features within the operating system which allow the phone itself to interact with some parts of the app’s online data source even if the app is not currently running. This is the mechanism which for instance provides alert notifications from Facebook or ebay.

This is all further complicated by the fact that many people, whether they realise it or not still have an online presence even if they were in the middle of a forest, out of range of any cell connectivity with all their devices switched off, batteries removed and placed in a lead lined box and buried in a field.

This is because many of the utilities and services with which we engage on a daily basis, are still working on our behalf even when we are not connected to them. For instance, our Facebook profiles are still available for people to read and to post to, your online photo albums are still accessible, your blog posts can still attract comments. ‘You’ can be invited to events, and listed with others on an ‘attendees’ list. Depending on your profile setting you may instantly friend or follow back anyone that requests to connect with you. Recommendation engines from online shops, music on demand services or movie streaming services are churning data preparing lists of content they think you’ll be interested in - they may even automatically send you an email about their findings.

In short, the online ghost of your data and meta-data still reflects your presence and represents your likes, activities and habitual interactions for people and software alike to engage with. When you post a reply to someone’s comment on Facebook, the feeling is more akin to a direct contact with them than for instance sending an email, even if your ‘friend’ isn’t currently logged in to Facebook. This is because the context of the interface personifies your ‘friend’ through their trail of activities. Of course you have a great deal of control over these things if you take a bit of care over your service settings.

Additionally, so much of what happens in the physical world is driven by online data and decisions made online, that the notion of being in a position where you are unaffected by things ‘online’ is fallacy.

From an E-safety perspective it is important that people understand the nature of perpetual connectivity and the fact that direct engagement with a service is no longer the only driver of activity.

Putting up an umbrella may shelter you from the rain but it does not stop it raining, nor does it protect you from the effects of the river about to burst it’s banks a mile away. Likewise, switching off a device does not terminate your online activity, or your involvement in the activity of others.

A recent naive post I saw on twitter suggested that the poster had no “sympathy for those moaning about cyber bullying” because they should “just turn off their computer.” Logging off of a social network does not curtail cyber bullying or neutralise the waves that it causes in the physical world. Like many aspects of E-safety, problems are best tackled by action and education in the real world.

These are tough concepts, but digital communications technology is such a useful tool and has such positive potential that it is worth the effort to understand and to ensure that the first principles are taught to our children so that they can apply the understanding as technology continues to evolve.

Media studies was once derided by many as a ‘Mickey Mouse subject’. However, in a society where mass media has such a profound influence on our perceptions, understanding and opinions, can any rational person really argue against the value of educating people to critically evaluate the messages, meaning, contextualisation and veracity of the information we receive and the motivations of those presenting it?

Likewise, in a world where so much of our interaction and engagement is mediated by communications technology, how can we not recognise the importance of teaching the fundamental underpinnings and the modes and models of the interaction?

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