Digital Smarts Blog

How much is social media considered in college admissions? About 68% of admissions officers say they reserve the right to check a prospective student's social media presence, but only 29% reported doing so, according to a series of surveys by Kaplan Test Prep. That’s actually down from the 35% last year who admitted checking an applicant’s social media presence. The data also shows that 20% of schools have set policies around checking students' social media, with just a third of those forbidding the practice.

Does your school use Facebook to post messages and news about what is happening at school? In light of the current headlines about Facebook sharing personal data without permission, many schools are worrying about protecting their students. Concerns over data privacy have some advocates calling for increased protections or, more harshly, recommending schools to stop using the platform all together. The National Education Policy Center has deleted its account and has encouraged others to take similar steps, but most schools are keeping their accounts but rethinking what they post.

Amazon is listening to the concerns of many parents who were worried about their kids using Alexa devices, whether it be for privacy or moral reasons such as worrying their children would have no sense of etiquette after being able to order Alexa to do something without a “please” or “thank you”.  Now Amazon is offering a new line of kid friendly and pro-etiquette products that encourage children to be polite. It turns out that kids are some of the biggest fans of voice assistants, with some learning to talk to Alexa, Apple's Siri or Google's Assistant before they can form full sentences. The new products are in the Echo Dot series and will have durable candy colored cases. Amazon is also adding parental controls to the Echo, Echo Dot and Echo Plus to help limit when a child can interact with their technology.

Looking for ideas for teaching digital citizenship? Understanding at what age to introduce particular digital citizenship skills is part of the formula for success. For example, for young children who are first being exposed to technology and social media, it is important to teach how the digital world and the real world are connected and to emphasize treating people online just as you would treat them in the real world.  Once those your kids are in middle and high school, it is a good idea to introduce topics such as privacy, ethical dilemmas and what to do about your digital footprint.

More teenagers may be engaging in digital self-harm -- the practice of anonymously posting negative comments about themselves online. In a survey published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, about 6% of students said they have cyberbullied themselves.

Why is this happening? Some kids, who feared they would be bullied by other kids anyway, felt it was better to beat others to the punch or even possibly deflect the bullying since it would appear that some one else had bullied them first. Others could just be looking for attention from either adults or their peers - wanting to see who would worry about them or stick up for them, or even to show how tough they are. No matter what the cause, it is a trend parents need to be aware of and schools counselors will need to figure out how to contend with.

A recent survey from Creative Strategies found that 20% of respondents don't use Facebook, and most of those say the top reason is privacy concerns. The research also showed that consumers who do use the platform don't mind ads, but are more worried about how Facebook is tracking the rest of their browsing activity. Almost half the respondents also said they are using Facebook less and limiting how much information they share on the platform.

There is a misconception that young people don’t care about privacy, but research is showing that just isn’t the case. The latest take on the subject is shown in a small, but in-depth study by Claire Fontaine of the Data & Society Institute. The study finds that young adults (16-20)  are very aware of online privacy, spend “significant time managing how they present themselves on social media”, and worry about what digital footprints they leave behind.

Perhaps most eye opening about this study is Fontaine’s take on schools and the message they are sending out on privacy. She contends that schools frame online privacy for students as primarily a matter of personal responsibility, which these days really isn’t true. That’s because Silicon Valley's current business practices and a lax regulatory environment can make anyone who participates in life online vulnerable no matter how safety conscious they are. She also feels schools are falling behind in their adoption of new technology and therefore failing to keep up with their students. That failure to keep up makes it harder for teachers and administrators to guide students who have concerns, leaving them alone to wrestle with huge questions about privacy, data collection and distribution that—if recent headlines are any indication—even the adults and institutions in society are ill-positioned to handle.

This interview with the author of the study further explains the findings of the study. As Fontaine puts it, we are seeing the “adultification of teenage-hood. “ We tell kids that online privacy is a matter of personal responsibility, but the truth is that it is likely that no amount of personal responsibility can completely secure your privacy and security online. That means a much better discussion to have with kids is about the tradeoffs associated with the technologies we use. That’s not an easy task, obviously, but undeniably more realistic.”

Twitter is participating in an experiment proposed by Medium.com to determine whether displaying rules of behavior to its users can cut down on abusive content. Results of the study, which also aims at improved privacy protection, will be evaluated independently. Other similar research has shown that the clear display of rules by institutions makes people more likely to follow them. The news of this experiment could be an interesting discussion starter with kids on online abuse and etiquette. Do they think displaying the rules could change people’s behavior online?

The website of the George Lucas Educational Foundation, Edutopia, features an article with 5 simple supports for students with dyslexia. These tech oriented supports include information on where to find free or inexpensive audiobooks, resources for note-taking apps, ideas for voice note players,  and suggestions on text-to-speech technologies. They also have a suggestion for teachers you might want to pass along - take away the stigma of “ear reading” by offering audiobooks as a reading option for the whole class. Kids may also discover that while often more enjoyable, listening to a book takes longer than reading it, giving them a new perspective on the challenges that dyslexic classmates face.

Scarlett Lewis, mother of a student killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut, has developed a free program that seeks to promote social and emotional learning and safety in schools and reduce bullying. Lewis says the Choose Love Enrichment Program is designed to bolster resiliency and other skills in students.

Facebook isn’t the only tech giant being challenged over its collection and use of consumer’s information. More than 20 consumer advocacy groups have recently filed complaints with the Federal Trade Commission against YouTube, alleging they have been gathering the personal data of children who use their platform and then using this data to target advertisements, in violation of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

COPPA requires commercial websites and apps to get informed parental consent before collecting any personal information on children under 13. YouTube, which is owned by Google, allows any visitor – regardless of their age - on its platform to search for content on the site and watch videos without signing in or verifying age. Although YouTube has a “kids version”, a 2017 survey by Common Sense Media found that more children watch YouTube on the main platform than on the kids' app. Of parents of kids ages zero to eight, 71 percent said their children watch videos on the main website or app, while 24 percent said their kids watch on the kids' app. 

A platform called Siembra -- Spanish for sowing seeds – provides communication tools for school admissions professionals and high school guidance counselors. The tools utilize student data analytics to target under-served and under-represented students for efforts encouraging them to go to college, including the ability to send text messages to low-income, first-generation, and racial and ethnic minority high-schoolers. Less than 20% of US students whose parents do not have college degrees go on to earn a degree themselves, according to data from the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation.

Twitter and Facebook are supporting the Honest Ads Act, a proposal that calls for platforms with a minimum of 50 million users to retain and make available for public viewing all political ads bought by groups investing more than $500. The bill would also require political ads to be labeled with "clear and conspicuous" disclosures and would require that platforms make "reasonable efforts" to prevent ads from being bought by foreign agencies.

The privacy of students' data was discussed during Mark Zuckerberg's recent testimony before a congressional committee. Facebook's founder and CEO was asked about the privacy of a Messenger application for minors and about youth technology addiction. Zuckerberg remained composed during two days of hours long questioning by members of the Senate Commerce and Judiciary committees, conceding and taking responsibility for mistakes concerning data privacy, possible election tampering, hate speech and fake news, and pledging changes to address the issues. He reiterated that the platform's goal is to bring communities together and repeatedly mentioned that the company is willing to work with lawmakers on the "right" kind of regulation.

One thing your children may have noticed during the questioning of Zuckerberg is the lack of experience with Facebook and knowledge about the platform that many of the Senators seemed to have. It brings to light a generation gap and is a good reminder to parents that it is important to make an effort to stay somewhat current with technology – and to never be afraid to ask your children questions about what they are doing with technology. Being open to learning new things, especially from your children, is important.

YouTube will soon launch a new choice for parents seeking programming for their children with a version of its Kids app that offers only videos handpicked by YouTube staff  - aka the “whitelisted” version. The algorithmically suggested version will still be available, but this new version should, in theory, cut down on the number of videos that sneak through the automated selection process that could include language and jokes inappropriate for kids.

Facebook has announced that it's implementing a new authorization process for advertisers that want to place ads on its platform related to political issues and for those that manage accounts with large follower numbers, requiring them to disclose their locations and identities. Election advertising on the platform will include a "Political Ad" label, as well as disclosures about who paid for the advertising. Be sure to point this out to your kids in your discussion of digital misinformation and the importance of vetting sources.

Digging through your Facebook files is an exercise you may want to undertake if you care about how your personal information is stored and used. To get started, Facebook has a tool for downloading your data that allows you to see and take out SOME OF the information you’ve put up on Facebook. So what kinds of things can’t be deleted?

Most basic information, like your birthday, can’t be deleted. More important, the pieces of data, like the record of people you have unfriended, can’t be removed from Facebook, either. And what happens to what you can delete? Beth Gautier, a Facebook spokeswoman, recently put it this way: “When you delete something, we remove it so it’s not visible or accessible on Facebook.” She added: “You can also delete your account whenever you want. It may take up to 90 days to delete all backups of data on our servers.”

Want to know more about how to delete information on your Facebook account without deleting your account? See these tips on the Tech Crunch page.

If you have already tried using a virtual reality (VR) headset you will probably agree that the effect is pretty mind blowing, whether you are riding a virtual roller coaster or strolling down a Parisian street. While VR is becoming more popular, not much is known about the effects it may have on kids. Recently Common Sense Media released a report on the subject entitled Virtual Reality 101: What You Need to Know About Kids and VR, co-authored by the founding director of Stanford University's Virtual Human Interaction Lab. The key finding from the report is this: Everything in VR is more intense, and while VR has great potential to show kids new worlds and may help in education, the jury is still out on both the  health risks and concerns remain that what kids experience may be too “real.”

So what can you as a parent do when your kids want to explore VR technology? Here are some suggestions:

• Pay attention to age ratings and choose games wisely with your own children in mind. Don't let your kids play VR games that mimic experiences you wouldn't want them to have in real life, such as using violent weapons. On the other hand, take advantage of VR that exposes kids to things they wouldn't normally get to see, feel, and learn, such as visiting a foreign country. 
• Keep it safe. Don't let kids use VR alone, help them get oriented when they first turn it on, stay seated if possible, and if kids feel nauseous, dizzy, drained, or sad, angry, or anxious -- give it a rest for a while.
• Keep privacy in mind. Devices that can track your movements -- including eye movements -- could store that data for purposes that haven't yet been explored.
• Keep talking. As with all experiences with technology, make sure you test out what your kids are seeing and doing with VR and talk to them about their impressions of the games.

Facebook is spelling out in plain English how it collects and uses your data in rewritten versions of their Terms of Service and Data Use Policy. The policies are being rewritten in an effort to be more transparent with users, not to ask for new rights for collecting and using data. The movement for this change came about after Facebook revealed that they think 87 million users (or more) accounts were scrapped for data in what was known as the Cambridge Analytica scandal. You can expect to see other updates and changes in these agreements as the company moves forward.

With so much personal information available online, it's important to pick answers to security questions that hackers can't easily guess. To combat the more simplistic nature of security questions, you might consider protecting yourself by providing random answers that cannot be researched or guessed. For example, instead of providing your mother's ­actual maiden name, you might provide the made-up name Aphrodite1234!, which resembles a password more so than a name. While this approach may defeat the purpose of simpler security questions, it allows for greater privacy and more security.