Social Media Dangers Education for Highland Kids

29th November 2011

Highland children learn internet dangers of social media.

An innovative project will see more than 10,000 Highland schoolchildren receive advice on protecting themselves against online stalkers over the next four years.

Internet safety was included for the first time this year as part of the Safe Highlanders multi-agency event where all Highland P7 pupils are invited to attend to experience active learning sets on key areas of safety.

A gathering of nearly 2,500 pupils, aged 11 and 12, revealed that over 90 per cent used Facebook, with many having several accounts. One 11-year-old girl had 500 'friends', but admitted she did not know half of them and many were male account holders.

Many of the children also admitted they competed with classmates and others to have the most online 'friends'.

Computer company Fujitsu has been assisting with the project under the community benefit clause in its contract with The Highland Council.

A method of driving home the message has now been shortlisted for a Highland Council Quality Award and has been requested for use by other local authorities across Scotland.

'Becky's Room', a mock-up of a teenager's bedroom, was developed by the Highland E-Safety Group and involves pupils being asked to look for clues such as school uniform, pictures or a favourite band to learn about her age and identity.

This is then compared to information made available by some youngsters in profile pages on social networking sites.

The aim is to bring to life advice on internet safety provided by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre (CEOP) educational resources branded 'Thinkuknow'.

One particular resource called 'Jigsaw' is aimed at 8-11 year olds and shows how 'carefree' online interaction with strangers can be if was similarly being enacted offline.

The project involved 1,655 pupils from 90 schools attending an event in Inverness. A further 784 pupils from schools in Lairg, Fort William, Portree and Wick attended satellite events.

Evaluations showed that 97 per cent of respondents will be more careful about putting their personal information online and internet safety will now be a regular feature at Safe Highlanders.

Brodie Shepherd, Fujitsu Scotland director, public sector, said: "What many parents and guardians probably don't realise, is how innocent information used by their children on social media websites, such as Facebook, can be used by internet stalkers.

"We had nine members of staff delivering internet safety advice during 100 hours of guidance sessions with over 2,000 pupils, and we were surprised to learn that the vast majority already have Facebook accounts.

"A great number of them also admitted to accepting 'friend requests' from people they didn't know, so it was clearly vital that they learn how serious the dangers of not protecting themselves can be.

"Information freely traded included where these young people might be meeting up socially, and what schools they go to. When you consider that lots of the 'friends' reading all of this information are actually unknown to many of these young people, the dangers become obvious."

He added: "This programme, implemented by The Highland Council, is an excellent attempt to better safeguard children and make it more difficult for internet 'groomers' to approach them.

"Fujitsu has been very glad to give this important work considerable backing and now we've committed to supporting it for at least another four years and will take the number of kids up to at least 10,000 receiving this advice."

A Highland Council spokesman said: "The project had a big impact on the kids. It has made them more aware of the dangers of being online and understanding that people may not be who they say they are nor the age they say they are.

"The feedback has been very positive and made young people more aware of the risks."

Louise Jones, Health Promoting Schools Manager said: "We also wanted to get across that privacy settings should not be relied upon, no matter how 'private' you think your profile may be, your friends are not bound by any confidentiality, privacy settings can also be confusing. It's really important therefore to think before you post, whether it's a personal statement, your location, something that you 'like' or photo of yourself or someone else, as soon as you post it, it will be outwith your control'. The emphasis of the project was about personal safety but also becoming good digital citizens and creating safer online communities."