One of the hardest aspects of dealing with social media with Middle School students is keeping up with the new sites and apps they are using. By now, most people know about Facebook and Twitter but these aren't frequently used by Middle School students anymore. Instagram has become popular as a site for posting photos with Middle School students. Kids think it's innocent because all they're posting are photos but you do want to make sure their privacy settings are set so only their followers can see their pictures and make sure they know their followers! You probably also want to monitor the comments that other kids make as these can be inappropriate at times and border on cyber bullying.
I have known about Kik Messaging for a while but it has come up again recently as causing some issues. Kik is an instant messaging app that kids can use with their computers, ipods, or phones without having to use data messaging (it works through WiFi). Many students also use it to send large group messages to classmates. The messages are usually innocent but when used with a large number of students, it has the potential to turn to mean or inappropriate as well. It's also easy for kids to delete Kik messages which makes this a challenge for parents and/or teachers to monitor.
SnapChat became popular last year. This app allows students to send photos to other users that will disappear off their phone within a set number of seconds. The potential for this app makes me very nervous with Middle School students as they think this means the photo will be gone forever after a few seconds. The user who receives the message though can take a screen shot of the photo and have it forever to share with others. Again, this app is often used innocently by our students to send "selfies" (funny photos of themselves) making various faces, but the potential negative uses means I tell students I don't see the value in it at all.
Just this week, students brought up a new site to me that I hadn't heard of before and I really wanted to share it. Ask.fm is a social media site where users have the option of posting anonymously. I don't see any good in the ability for kids to post anonymously. This site is similar to Formspring, which was popular a few years ago and caused several issues here at school. One of the challenges with ask.fm is that kids link to it through Instagram and Facebook so they think it is just an extension of the site they are already using. I see no positive sides to students being able to post anonymously and am recommending to not use it to all students. Ask.fm has been linked with a few student suicides after intense cyberbullying and the site says they will be making changes to combat this, but few changes have been seen at this point.
We will be talking with students about these sites and others as well as online safety during an upcoming advisory, but I wanted to share the information with parents as well so you know what to look for on your students' phones/ipods/computers and are able to have a conversation with them about these sites.
Here's a recent article on the suicides linked with ask.fm -
http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/10/living/parents-new-apps-bullying/ for more information.
