Last week’s incident involving the use of Skype to demean a young female trainee at the Australian Defence Force Academy once again highlights the potential for inappropriate use of the internet to destroy young people’s positive sense of self. A few weeks earlier, Australian soldiers serving in Afghanistan were severely embarrassed, and even put in danger, by the unthinking and racist comments of a few posted on Facebook for all the world to see.
At the same time such sites as Facebook, and the Internet in general, have enormous power for good. Closed and oppressive systems fear them. The movement for human rights and democracy that has swept across Egypt and other places in the Middle East depended on the social networks and mobile phones to communicate, protest and to build resistance.
But patterns of behaviour associated with internet use have thrown up new and important concerns not just for defence force chiefs, but for school teachers and parents as well. Sexting and the videoing of fights on mobile phones between students are increasingly commonplace. Schools struggle to keep up with what may be happening, let alone in responding effectively to incidents that affect the welfare of their students.
A recent article in the Fairfax press quoted Rosemarie Costi, the school captain at Monte Sant’Angelo, North Sydney. She said ‘It is really easy to misrepresent yourself [online] when you are trying to look cool.’
There are increasing concerns, also, about how social networking sites create new opportunities for bullying and demeaning others, and how this can magnify the impact of bullying on victims.
In reflecting on such threats it is important to put forward what is at stake. Reputations, of individuals and of schools, can be put at risk by what is carelessly or maliciously put out. Perhaps the most invidious aspect can be the breach of trust that can occur – between friends and peers, within a Year level, or between staff and students. So much of what school is about centres on relationships, and an environment of trust and security is integral to this.
It is not always that such consequences stem from deliberate choices. We need to realise that there is a tendency in forums and chat rooms etc (as with emails, and with adults as much as with young people) to write with less care about the impact on others than we would in any face to face encounter.
The whole format of