Hotline - 089 80 99 027 00
No technological innovation has influenced the lives of young people as profoundly as digital media. In particular, the internet and the associated social media offer a fascinating array of countless productive possibilities.
The internet carries only minor dangers if you are familiar with it, but for unaware users, especially children, it poses numerous risks that are constantly changing.
Consequently, youth media protection has gained a completely new, urgent significance, and media literacy has emerged as the fourth student competence, alongside reading, arithmetic, and writing.
Youth media protection can be analyzed from educational, legal, and technical perspectives. However, media education and training take priority initially. The focus is therefore on imparting digital skills, which should enable children to handle computers, smartphones, tablets, and gaming consoles responsibly, independently, and with an awareness of safety.
The aim of media education is not only targeted at the younger generation. It is also necessary to empower educators, such as parents and teachers, to competently guide and advise their children and students on this path, thus introducing them to the digital world in an age-appropriate, protected, and prepared manner.
One should not rely solely on technical aids such as special filtering software. While they serve as support by controlling and limiting possible content and time usage, they do not replace real, intensive media education due to their easy circumvention and occasional unreliability.
Comparable to traffic education, media education at this point is similarly neglected. If we were to handle traffic education as carelessly as media education nowadays, it would metaphorically mean putting ever smaller children into ever larger high-tech machines. No responsible parent would dream of letting their child take the wheel of a car without a driver's license and seatbelt, yet an immeasurable number of guardians allow the youth unprotected and uncontrolled access to the internet, without prior, thoughtful education about the many risks and problematic content they will encounter.
The widespread definition of media literacy is initially associated exclusively with technical expertise—handling hardware and office programs, word processing, image editing, information retrieval, etc. Preparation for risks and side effects often remains secondary.
The vast majority consider their home PC sufficiently secured with the installation of antivirus software and have little understanding of the many critical areas of the digital worlds. Even in a school context, youth media protection and media education remain peripheral topics, even though more and more schools are trying or feel compelled to pay more attention to them.
Here we teach children and adolescents how to drive, to use a previous metaphor, without imparting awareness of safety and risks as well as basic knowledge of traffic signs and rules. If you do not pass the theory test in driving school, you will not be admitted to the practical test—but for the safe use of new media, there is neither mandatory instruction nor a theory test. Here, the well-known "learning-by-doing" principle is applied, where surfing the net is done thoughtlessly.
In order to prevent the unprepared use of age-inappropriate websites and content, as well as the careless disclosure of personal data, parents should address the following points. . This is how to successfully guide children towards the new medium, influence their usage behavior, and prepare them for unexpected encounters with the adult world.
Recommendation for Action
What is behind Social Media
Social media now encompasses much more than just Facebook, Instagram, and others - it also includes wikis, video and document-sharing portals, microblogs, and forums, offering a variety of helpful options.
Get informed about the most popular online activities across different age groups and talk to your children to find out how extensive their usage and knowledge already are. To gain the best insight into the actual functions of a social network, we recommend creating your own user account on the different networks. This allows you to get an understanding of the privacy settings of the respective network operator and to check to what extent users have control over personal data. Discuss with your child the possible consequences of publishing private data with regard to real life, e.g., job searching.
Lassen Sie sich Zeit
The daily life is consistently influenced by new technology, and individual stages of development, such as puberty, also mark a new chapter in life digitally. Access to social media, particularly to social networks, is easier than ever today through smartphones and tablets. You can get the best possible overview of your children's usage time by analyzing the daily routine and discussing the topic directly. Since the digital world plays a significant role in social life today, children and teenagers need to be made aware of how to handle social media responsibly. It is advised to avoid prohibitions and prefer regular exchange. On the one hand, children's social contacts can suffer, and on the other hand, it restricts the conscious engagement with the digital world and slows down learning to handle it responsibly.
Step by Step - Building Media Literacy Purposefully
What is crucial is that you yourself are familiar with the medium of the Internet and, in particular, the workings of social networks, current apps, and often hidden chat applications. You can then talk to your children about the various online activities. Opportunities and risks can be discussed, and regular and early education can take place.
Information in social networks
Personal information such as phone numbers, addresses, and places of residence, or email addresses should be avoided if possible. In any case, the settings (privacy) in social networks should always be configured so that private information is not publicly visible. The basic rule remains that personal data should only be shared with people you know well and trust.
The Internet never forgets
Based on the legal basis, social networks are prohibited from sharing data with third parties without obtaining the user's explicit consent or being required to do so by an official order. You can find the guidelines followed by the respective providers in their respective privacy policies and terms and conditions (T&Cs). Content such as images, videos, or text posts that users publish on social networks generally remain the property of the respective user and may only be displayed in the profile of the respective owner, but not used otherwise.
Cyberbullying - Harassment on Social Networks
The information platform Klicksafe.de describes cyberbullying as follows:
Cyberbullying (synonym for cyberbullying) refers to the intentional insulting, threatening, exposing, or harassing of others using internet and mobile phone services over an extended period. The perpetrator, also called a "bully," selects a victim who cannot or can only with difficulty defend themselves against the attacks. There is thus a power imbalance between the perpetrator and victim, which the perpetrator exploits while the victim becomes socially isolated.
Cyberbullying occurs on the internet (e.g., in social networks, on video portals) and through smartphones (e.g., via instant messaging applications like WhatsApp, annoying calls, etc.). Often, the bully acts anonymously, so the victim doesn't know exactly who the attacks are coming from. Particularly in cases of cyberbullying among children and adolescents, victims and perpetrators usually know each other from the "real" personal environment, such as school, the neighborhood, the village, or the ethnic community. Therefore, victims almost always suspect who might be behind the attacks.
The mere approach of criminal acts against children and young people should be monitored and documented from the start. Messages or public posts with such content can be printed out or saved as screenshots. Bullying on social networks usually includes a violation of the operator's rules. In such a case, contact the operator as soon as possible and, if necessary, involve the police. As the internet is extremely fast-paced, you should not hesitate but act immediately.
Support from Experts
Since social networks have existed, various initiatives, associations, and organizations have been concerned with the dangers of these platforms. Involve these experts if your child encounters problems in social networks.
Don't remain out of touch with the scene and make use of available resources. To stay up-to-date and independently acquire the necessary knowledge, we recommend using the following informational services:
In addition to concise guides on the latest apps, these also clarify the associated opportunities and risks.
famPLUS - Together for your personal PLUS!
