Did you do your homework?
I asked you to pose your class a few questions in the previous post. If you haven’t done that yet, go back and read that post, then do the task, then come back here.
Done that? Good. (Yes, obviously I know you haven’t actually done it, but there comes a time where I just have to pretend that you’ve done what I asked so the class can move on.)
These experiences might seem trivial, but they matter. They not only have a huge immediate emotional impact on the children’s wellbeing, they are also crucial life lessons – for good or for bad. What are those lessons? Well, let’s remind ourselves of the questions were and then we can explore why they are so important.
1. If you were watching a YouTube video and they said, “Like and subscribe otherwise tonight 1,000 spiders will crawl over you in your bed,” how many of you would like and subscribe?
The results of this question shocked me – almost the entire class raised their hands. The justification made by the children was overwhelmingly, “Well, it doesn’t cost me anything, so why would you risk it?” But why is this a problem?
Children are learning that it’s OK to act upon an outright lie out of fear for some sort of non-existent consequences. It reinforces the idea that if someone says something on a video, there’s actually a chance that could make it true. They are learning to supress their rational thinking in favour of a knee-jerk fear response. They are also learning that through perpetuating a lie, you can actually manipulate people into doing what you want. And they are learning that there are no negative consequences for lying.
This is very much a PSHE issue as well as a Digital Safeguarding issue. However, it isn’t always effectively addressed in schools when it comes to online video and social media. In fact, many people believe that this kind of susceptibility to fake news is something that children grow out of. The danger is that the reach of technology is growing much, much faster than our understanding of its social impact, leading to people all over the world profiting from the manipulation of the truth. If susceptibility becomes ingrained from childhood, the adult that child will grow into has less chance to distinguish truth from falsehood.
It is up to you how you choose address this in your classroom, but I would approach it from a position of analysing the video for clues that would suggest to them that it isn’t true. For example: where would all the spiders come from? Why 1,000? What power does this YouTuber have to command spiders? What happens if I rewind the video and watch it again – do I have to like and subscribe again? If you just say it, does it make it true? If I said, “If you like and subscribe, 1,000 jelly babies will appear” do you think it will happen?
Then refer to the YouTuber’s motivation for saying this. What do they get out of it if you like and subscribe? You might want quickly search together how much a YouTuber makes per million views and then re-ask the question, “Why might this YouTuber want you to Like (promote the video to other users) and Subscribe (sign up to ensure you watch more of their videos)?”
2. How many of you have experienced a scam trade in a game like Roblox?
3. How many of you have had an online account hacked or things taken from your account without your permission?
A lot of children have experienced these situations. However, it is easy for adults to dismiss them out of hand – the item(s) you lost have no monetary value, so never mind, don’t get upset.
A scam trade is where a user is manipulated or tricked into giving an in-game item to another user for free. There are many ways for malicious users to achieve this, but the idea that an in-game item is not worth anything is absolutely wrong. Just because it might not have cost money doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth anything to the child. Some very rare items might have taken months or even years to acquire.
When an adult is unfortunate enough to experience a burglary or robbery, they experience a huge range of emotions, only one or two of which are related to the monetary value of the stolen items. Some items have significant sentimental value. Some people find it difficult to overcome the horrible feeling of intrusion. Some people no longer feel safe in a place that may have been their sanctuary. Some people feel extreme anger that they might take out on others. Some people blame themselves, perhaps feeling foolish that they have been taken advantage of. It is an absolute understatement to say that these can be extremely traumatic experiences.
A child does not have the experience of the world to contextualise their loss and, to them, their loss is very real and very meaningful. They will experience their own emotions as a result and if an adult dismisses them out of hand, what do you think they are learning from this experience?
Make the classroom a safe place for children to recount their own stories without having to worry about ridicule or that their feelings will be dismissed. Then approach a child’s experience in a constructive way. Take us through how it happened. Did you know how to report the user? How could you avoid experiencing this again? The lessons they learn today will give them tools to deal with similar situations if and when they arise tomorrow.
Like it or not, scams and thefts are very much part of everyday adult life and your discussions today could frame how a child responds to similar, more serious situations in later life, as well as teach them the pre-emptive actions that might protect them better in the future. For example, it might not seem like someone can do very much with a username and password for an unimportant website, but if you have used that same user-password combination on a more impactful site (e.g. a shopping site where credit card details have been saved, any financial site, an email account…), the instant consequence could be devastating. If there is some good to come out of such an unpleasant experience for the child, it is the opportunity for them to learn how to avoid being the victim of such an attack in real life (very much digital safeguarding) but also how to manage the emotions they might feel if they are a victim and how to avoid blaming themselves (very much emotional health and wellbeing).
4. If an advert for an app told you that you could get paid for playing games, would you install that app? How many of you have seen ads like that?
Scams don’t have to be iilegal to deprive you of your time and work. Scams often work best on the vulnerable and those that have no other choice. A child has very few opportunities to make real money, so an app like this might strongly appeal to them.
The basic premise of these apps tends to be that if you download the app and play games, the app will serve you advertisements for which the app developers receive a small amount of money. They then agree to share some of this money with you.
How these apps often work in reality is that there will be a minimum amount a user can cash out, let’s say £50. At first, the user will have relatively large amounts credited to their account – perhaps 20p or 30p per ad view, and they will think that they will make the £50 in no time. Soon, the amounts given per ad view will drop to much lower levels – perhaps 2p or 3p – and before long, some ads will not result in any amount being credited to the account. The design is set so that a user can get close to the payout amount, but not actually achieve it.
So think about the learning points that can be applied here. Children can learn through direct experience that when something seems to be too good to be true (getting paid to play games), it should be treated with extreme caution. And children should learn that you are most likely to be targetted when you are vulnerable – when you feel like you have no other way to get what you want or need. This applies as much to children who download a “get paid for playing” app as it does to teenagers getting involved in County Lines or adults who turn to gambling or loan sharks in times of financial need.
Why Tier 2 Digital Safeguarding matters
There is so much to be learned from these experiences and yet they are so rarely explored. They are bonding experiences, learning experiences and opportunities for you to directly impact your children’s mental health so they don’t feel like they’re alone.
My intent is that each Tier 2 Digital Safeguarding topic is a short opportunity for class discussion that can have a big impact on the health and wellbeing of your children. It’s a chance for you to use Tier 2 Digital Safeguarding to not only demonstrate a real, significant depth to your approach to computing, but as a genuine SMSC development opportunity that won’t take up much of your class time and could just as easily be applied to assemblies.
In each topic, I intend to give you a simple question to present to your class and some background for you as to why it’s important. All you have to do is find the time to fit it in – even if it was just five minutes a month, it’s a real chance to bond with the children on matters that are meaningful to them. And as you know, it’s easier to have an impact on someone when your implementation contains the key words and ideas that mean something to them.
James
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