When it comes to the Internet, she has a simple rule: “If it’s something you think is private, it doesn’t go on the World wide Web. You should place there what you want people to know about you.”
Parents need to monitor what sites their child visits and what they post on social networks, she said. “Determine what is developmentally appropriate,” she said, and help the child better understand the technology being used. Parents should use technology-filtering software, which Koestner compared to choosing a movie the child may see.
“Technology is a privilege; it’s not a right,” she said. Parents should set parameters for its use, even when the child pays for a cell phone or Internet access. “If the child is paying for it you might set up a different set of rules, but if your child is a minor he is still under your supervision.”
Cell phones carry some of the same potential problems as computers — inappropriate text messages and videos or photos, and accessing inappropriate information.
But cell phones also carry some other pitfalls, Koestner said, including its use while driving and isolating oneself through its use.
One of the problems with today’s technology is its speed. “It’s so fast you can do everything with a single button,” she said. But once sent, “there’s no way to get it back.”
Tamara Napier, whose son, Craig, is a senior at St. Elizabeth, discovered many concerns through Koestner’s talk last May. “I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who did not know,” Napier said. “Our kids are so blessed with all of the technology that is out there. But the things she presented to us, I don’t think we would have known without her presentation.”
Multitasking
St. Elizabeth history teacher Dana Delle Donne didn’t expect the graduating seniors to get too much from Koestner’s presentation. “When I heard we were going to do something on cyber smarts, I’m like, these kids have been drilled about this stuff,” Delle Donne said. “But she told them things we couldn’t have, maybe because we didn’t know or maybe because we didn’t realize.
“She made them realize that I’m leaving my safe little environment of high school and there’s a big old bad world out there and I could get caught up in it if I’m not careful.”
One of the problems for today’s high school parents is that their children have grown up with the technology while parents have not, Delle Donne said. But she is hesitant to say children today multitask better than their parents did in the pen and paper age of high school.
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“If you think about it, you were listening and writing at the same time,” she said, “but I think that their mind g oes in so many directions. They could be on the computer texting, watching TV, reading a book and listening to their mom all in the same context.
I don’t have any scientific proof of this, but it almost rewires their brain to think differently.”
Printed with permission from the Dialog, newspaper for the Diocese of Wilmington, Delaware.