The following excerpt is all based on surveys that I conducted in my middle school computer classes. This lesson focus was TMI- too much information. This unit is all about controlling the flow of information about yourself.
Sadly, so many of today’s kids are constantly putting themselves at risk in regards to their personal information without even realizing it. The first thing we did this week was take a survey about Facebook and other social networks, including activities like live interaction on X-Box 360.
Here are the results:
Sadly, so many of today’s kids are constantly putting themselves at risk in regards to their personal information without even realizing it. The first thing we did this week was take a survey about Facebook and other social networks, including activities like live interaction on X-Box 360.
Here are the results:
I was pleased to learn about 15% of my students do not belong to a social network of any kind. But it troubled me that some of my 6th grade students used Facebook. Even more troubling, more than a third of my students have more than 300 'friends' on Facebook. After further investigation, I confirmed that many are friends of friends or simply strangers that have been 'friended..
Ten percent of my students have more than 500 friends, and one even has more than 1,000. This means that all of the personal information about themselves and their friends can be viewed by 1,000 people, plus all of their friends. This presents an exponential issue. Even if your child only has 50 'friends' on Facebook, depending on the security settings, any friends from those original 50 can have access to your child as well. A major problem here is that kids will friend anyone -- they believe there is a status attained by having thousands of friends.
Ten percent of my students have more than 500 friends, and one even has more than 1,000. This means that all of the personal information about themselves and their friends can be viewed by 1,000 people, plus all of their friends. This presents an exponential issue. Even if your child only has 50 'friends' on Facebook, depending on the security settings, any friends from those original 50 can have access to your child as well. A major problem here is that kids will friend anyone -- they believe there is a status attained by having thousands of friends.
