Digital Citizenship Requires Vigilance and Reflection - I Almost Learned the Hard Way

If you don't have anything nice to say, 

don't say anything at all..."

- said by every mother ever

While the internet can be a place to share ideas and respectfully disagree with them, it is also a place for a lot of nastiness, bullying, and self-righteous anonymity.  It is important for kids - and adults alike - to learn to be responsible Digital Citizens. The appropriately named Digital Citizenship.net defines digital citizenship as this: 

Digital Citizenship is a concept which helps teachers, technology leaders and parents to understand what students/children/technology users should know to use technology appropriately.  Digital Citizenship is more than just a teaching tool; it is a way to prepare technology users for a society full of technology. Digital Citizenship is the norms of appropriate, responsible technology use.

Technology - specifically the internet - has infinite uses: learning, networking, making friends, disseminating opinions, creating and displaying art, shopping, selling, sharing photos, advertising... It is tempting as teachers to only focus on the positive, educational purposes and use the available technology as such.  But that is only part of our job - we have to protect our students online, and (more importantly) teach them to protect themselves as well. Not only are there the very pressing threats of predators and identity thieves, but the less obvious concerns of damaging your reputation, accidentally downloading viruses, and the possible consequences of plagiarism, copyright infringement and illegal downloads.  

Personally and professionally it is always prudent to be mindful of your digital footprint. Keep track of the trail you leave. Once something is out there - a photo, a distasteful post, a credit card number... there's no taking it back.   

Part of this week's blog prompt is to reflect on a time I've ever had my feelings hurt by something someone shared online. Yes. Yes I have. If you read my very first blog post Kicking and Screaming - it was a very, very personal post (the assignment came at a particularly emotionally stressful point in my road to divorcing my cheating soon-to-be ex-husband and I unleashed in a borderline professionally inappropriate way because that prompt brought up some of those issues for me.  It was a case of oversharing, I suppose, but it as I archive my life via a blog I guess it's important to remember where I was in my journey at this point.) In that first blog I talked about the Facebook "war" that I got into with him. I won't go in to it again - feel free to follow the link.  Anyway, it technically started with the Other Woman - and a post that wasn't necessarily attacking me in anyway - in fact, it seemed sweet and any stranger who saw it would probably "like" it and maybe even awwww internally. But the timing was spiteful and, as you will see, it was most likely purposefully posted to be hurtful.

She was my former friend and the person who comforted me in the weeks when he started to pull away... the one who told me what a fool my husband was when he simply told me he "wasn't happy and hadn't been for years."  And how she never liked him - or appreciated the way he treated me. Then both of them moved out of our neighboring townhouses within 24 hours of each other. A week after my soul-baring cry-fest with her. This was the last day of May.  

By early July I found out they were dating - had been for weeks (although neither will admit anything happened pre-moving out. Right...).  Everyone who knew what was going on - including their own families - were pretty disgusted with their attempts to legitimize their behavior. She made sure to post lots and lots of pictures of Him, Her, and all 3 of our combined children getting along like a shiny new family (to be fair, the kids were already like family before this disaster... but more like cousins, not siblings).  Then, in November - literally on the day of my 5th wedding anniversary (we are still married!!) - a day that I spent in tears cradling a bottle of wine - she posted this meme. With a personal comment about how glad she was that she waited until she found The One...he's so wonderful and treats her like a princess...blah blah blah gag me.

I was astonished.  She didn't "wait for The One"... she'd been with her own man for 10+ years, had kids with him and married him...then walked out on him and took my husband with her. Waiting for The One and stealing someone else's "One" are two very different acts.  
It cut so deeply to read this. That's the thing about the internet - you can be acrimonious and confrontational without the discomfort of personal interaction. So I retaliated (almost) by composing the longest ranting comment I'd ever written.  It took me hours because I kept revisiting and revising it - trying to hit every horrific bullet point of how despicable everything they were doing was.  And how trashy it was to post this on her married boyfriend's wedding anniversary. Especially when you're still married too! I was going to air out every last sock of their "dirty laundry." I kid you not... it was longer than one of these blog posts. It was soooo tempting to hit that button.  But I didn't - I sat on it for a day... unsure of whether or not I wanted to spew that much acrid resentment into cyber space. (Clearly, there is still much of that resentment within me and this education blog is probably not the place to air out these socks... but this prompt asked me, so I'm answering. I'm not attacking them here, the way I was then... here I'm just telling what happened. There's no shortage of snark, I'll admit. But my handling of this topic is much more mature and reflective now rather than knee-jerk venomous.) 

So anyways, I hesitated, I let friends read it and asked them whether or not I should post it (getting mixed responses - some said "heck yeah! they deserve it" to "I think you'll regret it"). Eventually I decided that the only good that could come out of putting that much negativity irreversibly out into a public forum like that was that I might feel good.  For a minute.  But it wouldn't change their minds.  It wouldn't bring him back.  It wouldn't teach them a lesson.   Instead, I copied and pasted that rant into a word document to save. Then I typed a new comment with as much syrupy sweetness I could muster - "Oh...I'm so glad you stumbled onto The One. How nice for you. He did all those things for me too, sweetheart.  Good luck with that!" That was all. There may have been a smiley face too, now that I think about it...

Please understand, I'm not bringing up this episode now which I was smart enough not to confront online before, to point fingers or anything - it just required context.  Besides, she deleted my comment (after it got several likes), unfriended me, and sent me a middle finger emoji via text message.  Later that week, her now-ex-husband (whom I am still good friends with) asked her if she even knew she'd posted that on our anniversary.  Apparently she laughed and said "of course I did!" Wow.  I then realized I didn't have to make posts exposing the inappropriateness of her behavior... she was showing the world all by herself. And besides, once you put something out there it's no longer yours.  It's public fodder.  I worried if I put too much hateful insults in a public forum that it could come up as relevant in a custody battle or something.  I didn't want that. The consequences could be way more powerful that any possible reward.

Kids - and many adults - don't think that far ahead.  They don't consider the ways in which the material they post online could negatively impact their personal - or professional lives. How many stories have we heard of a person losing their job because they complained about the company on Facebook?  Or I remember hearing about a teacher at a very conservative Christian school being fired for posting a picture of herself holding a bottle of champagne on New Years Eve. (Champagne?  Really?)  But it's so important to remember that your gauge of "appropriate/inappropriate" is not necessarily the same as the law firm you might work for in a few years.  Do you really want your future boss to see photos of your Spring Break "Girls Gone Wild" escapades from 3 years ago?  

According to a Pew Research Center study:

55% of all online teens say they have decided not to post content that might reflect poorly on them in the future.Beyond social media sites, teens are at least occasionally thinking about the impact of their digital footprints online, and how the content associated with their names may affect their reputation. More than half of all online teens (55%) say they have decided not to post something online because they were concerned that it might reflect badly on them in the future. Teen social network site users are almost twice as likely as non-social network site-using online teens (60% vs. 34%) to say they have withheld content after considering the potential ramifications.

• Older teen internet users (ages 14-17) are more likely than younger teens (ages 12-13) to say they have reconsidered posting content online after thinking about the possibility of negative implications (59% vs. 46%).

• The oldest group of online teens—who are likely to be preparing for or in the midst of college and job applications—report the highest levels of this kind of digital withholding; 67% of online 17-year-olds say they have withheld content that might damage their reputation

Leopard Jammie Day

So that's encouraging I suppose - especially that the older teens get, the more cognizant they become of the implications of their digital footprint. I hope that number only continues to grow.  The other scary part is the possible consequences of posting too much general information about yourself (or your children) - not even things that could be detrimental to your public image (present or future).  As a mother, I worry about the cyber world that my daughter will grow up in.  


I try to limit her screen time.  However she has gotten her grubby little hands on my mother's old Kindle and I occasionally let her watch Elmo clips or these obnoxious nursery rhyme animations (If I hear "Humpty Dumpty" one more time I might crack.) Usually if I want 10 minutes to shower without the curtain being repeatedly pulled back...or my "butt!" being pointed at and identified over and over... I'll set her up with her 'movies' on a little stool in the bathroom so I can hear what she's listening to. But I know I won't be able to so closely supervise the media she consumes as she gets older.  That's terrifying.  I can try to teach her proper use of social media, to think before she posts, and to not give her information out to anyone (especially strangers) but there's only so much a parent can do. Although, that's true for so many aspects of parenting a growing child... that whole nasty bit of gaining independence. But trust me, when she's older and joins Facebook (or whatever the sharing site du jour is by then, she will have to be "friends" or "followed by" Mom.  Because if it's something you wouldn't want your mother to see... then NO ONE (especially strangers) needs to see it.  

Whether I like it or not, she's already a part of the digital community.  She is a Digital Citizen. Her "Digital Dossier" started with the very first time I created a registry for my baby shower and still receive milestone-appropriate samples (i.e. toddler formula on her first birthday). So her name, her photos, her birthday... it's all out there already! So now I not only have to monitor my own information and behavior... but her's too. And, someday, I will also be responsible for helping my students navigate through these murky waters. It's a lot, I know - but it's of the utmost importance!