Just Goggle “Twitter high school confessions” and you will
get pages and pages of high school confession accounts and articles from across
the country reporting on this new brand of over sharing and cyber bullying. A
vast majority of these confessions are anonymous. Some share compliments and
are harmless. However, most of the posts involve comments about drug abuse and
casual sex. Many appear to simply be nasty rumors or comments bashing peers or
teachers.
Confessions
are collected in a variety of ways: accounts using Twitter’s direct messaging
and by using third party services like Survey Monkey, Google Docs, or Ask.fm.
Teens have also taken to Tumblr and Facebook, creating pages with their school
names, but often denying any affiliation with the school.
What can
parents do to help protect their teens? Jennings suggests that they be
proactive and follow their children on Twitter, searching for mentions of their
full name or username. Try searching for “confessions” or “compliments”
accounts linked to the school your child attends.
If you or
your child is on the receiving end of inappropriate or unwanted Tweets, there
are several actions one can take. Twitter offers suggestions for dealing with
online abuse including ‘unfollowing’ and blocking the user. If unwanted
@replies continue, Twitter recommends reporting the abusive user.
When abuse
goes beyond name-calling and the danger of a physical threat is felt, Twitter recommends
alerting local law enforcement about the harassing behavior. Be sure to
document all interactions with screenshots or printouts and be specific about
why you are concerned.
Check out
Twitter’s “Safety & Security” page for more ideas on how to protect
yourself and children by addressing concerns you have for content you found on
the site. While unwelcomed Tweets are not typically grounds for criminal
charges, any threats made to a school or individual should be reported to the
police and taken seriously.
The adults
in a child’s 21st century life should teach them to respect
themselves and others before writing their own confessions. Anything that they would not be comfortable
saying face-to-face should not be posted. Applying the “Golden Rule” with
posts is essential.
Additional
resources about cyber bullying are available from the National Crime Prevention
Council, Cyberbullying Research Center, StopBullying.gov, and
ConnectSafetly.org.
-Dr. Paula Sissel
[email protected]
Garden County Schools
Superintendent/Elementary
Principal