"Mom, that's creepy", my son exclaims as I begin asking him some questions about some postings I've seen on Ask.fm. What is Ask.fm? Well, I'm glad you asked - you need to know about it and all of the social media platforms your children are experimenting with - they need you to know about them, even if they don't know that they do.
As a little backgrounder, when my son asked to be on Facebook I made him a deal (the same deal that I will make with my other 2 children) - yes, but you must accept my friendship request and be ready to do so for any other social media platform you are on. So as of today, I follow my firstborn on about 6 different platforms. I do this not to be creepy, but to teach. These platforms are our kids' entry into the big wide world and while they think they are ready for it, their developing brains are not. For anyone who does not know this fact, boys brains are not fully developed until they are 25-30 years old and girls develop a little bit quicker at 18-25 years of age. The last part of the brain to develop is the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that understands long-term consequences - at 13, 14, 15 they truly don't get the idea that they will regret something one day.
So, back to Ask.fm. It is an innocent enough platform in theory, the gist of it is that people can ask each other questions. It's a bit like twitter in that you can follow people without them giving permission. You can set privacy settings to limit who can view your content - many people know this and do it, many people do not. Where it gets scary is the way that it actually gets used. People can ask questions or make statements without stating who they are, completely anonymously. This of course, removes all accountability and where the gloves come off. I am seeing girls being asked if they are virgins at 13 years of age - and the scariest part is that they are answering. There is a statement being used of "honesty hour" encouraging people to answer any question with complete honesty no matter what the question and they willingly do it! They are talking about their underwear, their body parts, sharing pictures of some of those body parts, talking about the things they do with said body parts, talking about drinking and smoking weed - AND they have no idea that somebody like me can read it all!
I'm not at all saying that they are not smart - they are - they are just extremely naive and they need to learn what is and is not appropriate to put out into the webosphere - and that is the job of the adults in their lives whether any of us like it or not. What I'm reading is not how I want to know these kids who I know are all Good kids in need of some honest and real guidance. When I have spoken to other adults about this stuff, many have said to me that they don't really want to know what the kids are saying or that they don't have time (which is legitimate) or that they can't be bothered (or are overwhelmed) to learn the technology. It is overwhelming and time sucking and to some degree emotionally exhausting - but that's parenting isn't it:)?
When bullying stories come to a tragic end like they did for Amanda Todd, we all react with the same question 'what could have been done to prevent this?'. I believe with every part of my being that the answer is to be proactive, be involved, learn the technology (it is not going away), be open with your kids, ask the hard 'creepy' questions and be ready for the resulting conversations. Talk to your kids about Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Ask.fm, Vine, Tumblr, Tinder, Snapchat, Kik. And, most importantly, for any awesome teenager who may be reading this post - I believe in you, you are good people, please be aware of the choices you make and the information you put out into the world, it is a reflection of who you are and you don't know who is seeing it - please, please, please think before you post.
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