The_Effects_of_Cyberculture_on_the_Family

The Effects of Social Networking on the Family Moira Galea University of Malta Abstract There are different ways how we can communicate online. Social Networking Sites aim to build online communities of people sharing common interests. Social Networking Sites have become increasingly common, in recent years, for a variety of purposes. There are various advantages and disadvantages associated with the use of these sites. Most important is their effect on communication, especially within the family. This is a new reality faced by the members of the family today. A set of measures must be adopted to protect our children from the hazards that may be encountered online. We can help people to use these sites more effectively and to an advantage. Introduction In recent years, Social Networking online has become ever more popular. Adults, youth and children are now not only computer literate, but they engage most of their free time online. This reflects the situation of families here in Malta. Today, a high percentage of youth and adults communicate regularly online, by means of Social Networking Sites. Even though, children may be underage to create their own accounts, they too seem to be users of common Social Network Sites such as Facebook. Methodology In this paper, I shall attempt to look more closely at the most common Social Network Sites being used and their effects on the family, in particular on communication. I shall interview five families to get a clearer image of what is happening on our islands, and analyze their response in the context of existing literature. I shall consult studies and articles that are available online, including Church documents to support Christian views, and try to propose an exhaustive guide that will help members of the family to use Social Networking Sites safely and effectively. Online Communication With the availability of internet in most of our households, communication with the outside world has taken many forms. 1. Email is the most common form of communication that is used on the web to communicate with friends, colleagues and members of distant family. Most people today check their mail at least once a day. 2. Photos and videos are probably one of the most common types of information shared online. People share photos through email, PowerPoint presentations and by posting them on Social Networking Sites for their friends to see. 3. Blogs are commonly shared with work colleagues and the public in general. 4. Social networking and instant messaging are perhaps the newest form of communication online. They have recently become very popular, especially among teens and young adults. Social Networking Sites Social Networking Sites have introduced us to a new way of socializing, a new way of keeping up to date with our friends and acquaintances. They have completely revolutionized our way of socializing. Whereas the first Social Network Sites that were available focused more on keeping track of friends and previous classmates, nowadays these sites are also being used to introduce ourselves to new friends and typically friends of friends. Some of the most common Social Network Sites that are currently being used are Facebook, MySpace, Hi5 and Friendster. Most students today have integrated the use of Social Networking Sites into their daily practice. They use them several times a day to communicate with their friends and to update themselves as to what is going on around them. This phenomenon is also widely used by adults. Several organizations use facebook to advertise their ideologies. The church today is also seeking these modern methods of communication to evangelize. The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, (2009) affirmed “its desire to take advantage of social networking sites as a way to communicate the love of Jesus Christ” . During a meeting of the Commission for the Media of the Council of European Bishops' Conferences, CCEE (2009): “Christian Hernandez, in charge of the commercial development of Facebook, showed how Christian initiatives have arisen in the Facebook world that range from a Shrine of Lourdes profile, to "Jesus Daily," a profile that offers phrases from the Gospel, and has more than one million followers.” Facebook seems to be the most common Social Networking Site that is currently being used by young and old. Social Network Sites provide a profile for the user. This is similar to a homepage about the individual. Here the user enters information about him/herself and about his/her interests. A photo is also added on this page. This page can be available to anyone, but users can adjust their security settings to allow only their friends to access the page. Having created their profile, users normally invite their friends to join their network, and users can become friends, only after confirmation from both sides. This reduces the risk of people spying on other users’ profiles without their knowledge. Users are asked to enter their interests and join groups that have common grounds, such as supporters of famous teams, fans of music groups, politicians and much more. The user than has a wall, where contacts can write comments, these comments are visible to all the contacts. According to the Consumer Internet Barometer , one out of every four people online now visits social-networking sites. The Consumer Internet Barometer surveyed 10,000 households across the United States and tracked the main activities taking place on the internet. Important findings from this study show that: • About half of social networkers visit social-networks sites on a daily basis - and half of them (or roughly a quarter of all social networkers) say they log on several times a day. • Among household members, those age 12-17 are more likely than their siblings to be daily users, with 57% saying they frequent social networking sites at least once a day. • Most users - more than three quarters - log onto social networking sites from home, but users also log on at work, school, and public places throughout the day. • Women are more likely to frequent social networking sites than men; in general, women use the internet more than men for personal communication. As we have seen above, youth today are keen users of Social Network Sites. The reasons may vary, but Boyd (2007) mentions an important possible reason. Teens have increasingly less access to public space. Classic 1950s hang out locations like the roller rink and burger joint are disappearing while malls and 7/11s are banning teens unaccompanied by parents. Hanging out around the neighborhood or in the woods has been deemed unsafe for fear of predators, drug dealers and abductors. Teens who go home after school while their parents are still working are expected to stay home and teens are mostly allowed to only gather at friends’ homes when their parents are present. By going virtual, digital technologies allow youth to (re)create private and public youth space while physically in controlled spaces. IM serves as a private space while MySpace provides a public component. Online, youth can build the environments that support youth socialization. Youth spend hours daily keeping in touch with their friends, while working, studying and doing homework. This is easily done through chatting and social networking. About twenty years ago, in my student years, we used to keep constantly in touch by means of the telephone, calling each other every evening as soon as we got home, after having spent the day together in school. Nowadays this dimension of relationships has clearly moved online, enabling the persons involved to interact for longer hours, at any time of the day or night. It is worth noting that this aspect of relationships with friends is much more difficult to be controlled within the family. Children, especially teens tend to develop a dependency on social network sites, unless the time they spend using them is controlled. This may be beneficial to those who tend to be left out of groups: by chatting and socializing online, they may find it easier to interact and be accepted as part of the group. The Australian Bishops, in ACBC (2009) “cite Benedict XVI in observing that communication technologies have "extraordinary potential" and can be considered "truly a gift to humanity."” Information obtained through interviews and questionnaire with families. I have interviewed five families who have children, in their teens and are using Facebook. In three cases, there was one parent who is also using the same networking site, mainly with the scope of keeping track of what is going on in their children’s online community. Adults in general, use these sites: • to keep in touch or stay connected with friends who no longer frequent the same circles • to keep in touch or stay connected with distant relatives • to monitor their children’s behaviours on the internet. Youth use them for a variety of other purposes, namely: • communicating with friends, • keeping track of what is going on, • informing themselves of activities taking place among their peers, • viewing and exhibiting photos of events they attended, • taking part in online quizzes, and • playing games. Parents said that their contacts are friends, colleagues and relatives; some also included former classmates. They all stressed the importance of being friends with their own children and possible to some of their children’s close friends. Children had friends and classmates as their main contacts. Some also had teachers and youth leaders. They also tend to add friends of friends, whom they normally get to know after being introduced online. This fact is not really appreciated by the parents. It is a common trend for children to want to have a large list of friends. Jones, Johnson-Yale, Millermaier, and Seoane Perez, (2009) studied how college students are using the Internet. Among the various uses, Social Networking is one of the most common. Virtually all of the students interviewed and observed expressed a desire to have a large number of friends link to them. In addition to self–esteem, self–presentation seemed to be a concern. According to one student, “People look at the number of friends you have and think ‘Wow! This guy has a lot of friends! There must be a reason for that.’” Parents stressed that they do not add any contacts, whom they don’t know and they insisted that they try to teach their children to do the same. Parents were afraid of possible risks that their children may encounter online if they added people they didn’t know. Family members within the same household, rarely communicate with each other online. They normally do so to greet each other, send birthday cards and wishes, and commemorate special events. This is done in addition to the normal celebration at home and in person. All users seem to use Facebook to keep in touch with members of the extended family. Asked about the possibility of starting to use Facebook to communicate within the home in the near future, parents were in the majority adamant that this should not happen. Children, on the other hand feel that this might be one way of communicating if they left the house to go to study or work elsewhere. It seems that no major facts or issues were ever discussed online with either close or distant family members. Parents are constantly afraid of the dangers that may be encountered online. They insist that their children should only add those people they knew for some time, and no one they do not know or they have become acquainted to recently. They also stress that they should add people who are in their age group as much as possible, and they do not like them befriending much older people. Parents encourage their children not to give too much information online, and to take care as to which photos to share. They also try to make sure that their children’s profiles are restricted, allowing them to share and view information and photos only with friends. Parents also like to monitor their children’s activities by checking their profile and wall pages regularly. They encourage them to talk freely by ensuring a sense of respect and privacy when the children feel they should share information with them. Another threat that parents see is that of being hacked, they try to encourage their children to be careful and to change their passwords regularly. Children, on their part, are not really aware of the dangers that they may encounter, or perhaps they are not so apprehensive. They are mostly concerned with the possibility of being hacked: they regularly change their passwords and they do not ever share them with anyone, to avoid this eventuality. They insist that if they only keep in touch with people they know, they are not likely to come to any harm. They are much more relaxed, and regard these websites, as part of their daily routine. Communication It is necessary to have strong and effective communication within the family. Communication is not just the exchange of words, but it involves several other dimensions. One of the most important dimensions that I attribute to communication is the ability to listen. Parents must strive to gain this ability to listen to their children, especially when they are in the years of adolescence. Further, the time and the environment must be created for children and adolescents to feel comfortable to communicate with their parents. With the introduction of new means of communication, especially the internet in recent years, there is hardly any time left for the family to interact. Communicating on Social Network Sites takes place several times a day. In my interviews, I saw that parents feel threatened by this new form of communication. They are concerned that it is difficult to find free time to communicate with their children, since online activities take so much of their time. Some of them try to ensure that they manage to fit into this part of their children’s lives, by creating their own profiles and seeking to follow their children’s behaviours online. Surely, this can never replace the warm face to face communication that is vital within the family! Communication is not made up only of words; it also includes the facial expression, tone of voice, and body language. When communicating online, these dimensions are easily absent or hidden. They can be also be masked and a false impression created. According to Mehrabian and Ferris (1967) : • 55% of impact is determined by body language—postures, gestures, and eye contact, • 38% by the tone of voice, and • 7% by the content or the words used in the communication process. Communication on Social Networks is not made up of these important characteristics. It is therefore bound to be less effective. Online communication is sometimes one way communication, since immediate feedback is not the norm. Boyd and Heer (2006) suggest that “the architectural structure of digital life alters the ways in which conversations can and do occur . . . digital communication now incorporates multiple forms of media bridging the physical and digital.” A person’s profile, including the wall and the photos posted make up part of an ongoing conversation with the online friends. The social interaction that takes place is somewhat more complicated in the sense that what goes on online may be different from the person’s self presentation in a real life relationship. Through the use of Social Network Sites, more and more time is spent communicating online every day. This poses what I feel is the real threat to the family. Youth and children spend so much of their time interacting online, that they are losing the skills for communicating effectively. Further, they do not find the time to communicate in the home and the quality of relationships thus diminishes. Safeguarding our children from the threats encountered online Several attempts have been made to give guidelines for parents on how to control their children’s online usage. For younger children, the best way to protect them is to minimize their time online and control the sites they visit by using an appropriate program for parental control. Communicating with the children to be aware of what they are doing online is a must; I would strongly advice parents not to let children under the age of 14 to use Social Network Sites. Microsoft Online Safety recommends the following four steps : 1. Decide where your child can and can't go on the Internet 2. Increase your security and privacy 3. Monitor where your kids go online 4. Remind kids not to talk to strangers online Children, from the age of 14 onwards, can normally create their own profiles on Social Network Sites. Parents should keep themselves informed as to which network sites are being used and I would also suggest becoming friends with your own children, to be able to monitor their online activities. From my interviews and by researching this topic, I can now list the main hazards as: 1. Disclosing too much information online 2. Cyber bullying 3. Online Predators 4. Invasion of Privacy, identity theft and phishing scams I have drawn up a list of preventive measures that can be taken, to safeguard our children when using Social Network Sites: 1. Disclosing too much information online Children have to be well-educated as regards the amount of information that they disclose on Social Network Sites. The time that children spend on the internet has to be limited. Online activities are normally addictive, and unless some form of control is exerted, children will become too dependent, and their social development may be hindered. The time allocated for online activities should be gradually increased as they grow older. This obviously has to come hand in hand with the following: 1. Children must be educated about what should be shared and what is best left private. They have to be aware that information that is shared online cannot be taken back. 2. Beware of people they do not know. 3. Never share passwords. I would recommend that passwords are changed regularly, and that strong ones are used, to eliminate the possibility of having hackers gaining access to the account. 4. Children should never fully identify themselves online. 5. Be careful about photos that are shared online, too much information may be disclosed. 6. Encourage your children to inform you if they notice friends behaving out of the norm. 7. Never follow links from advertisements, but sites should be accessed by typing the appropriate URL instead. 8. Children must never meet people they have met online and do not know 9. Monitor the place from where children can actually access the internet (E.g. school, home, friends’ homes, etc) 10. Discourage children from using mobile phones, if available, to access the internet. 11. Be cautious when installing the external applications that work with the social networking site. They may give away too much personal information. 2. Cyber bullying According to Bill Belsey: Cyberbullying involves the use of information and communication technologies such as e-mail, cell phone and pager text messages, instant messaging (IM), defamatory personal Web sites, and defamatory online personal polling Web sites, to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behaviour by an individual or group, that is intended to harm others. “Awareness and education are the keys to the prevention of cyber bullying!” It is important to stress once more the need for family communication to be strong. Parents would be in a better position to inform and highlight these measures to their children. 1. Computers should be kept in a commonly used room, within the house. This helps parent to monitor what is going on online, and also ensures that children know that they are being watched. 2. Personal information or passwords should never be given to third parties. 3. Not all the information online is true. Friends or contacts can actually give incorrect or false information. 4. Encourage children to be polite. They should use Netiquette (Internet Etiquette) and be polite to others online just as they would like to be treated themselves. If treated rudely or meanly, they should not respond. 5. Children should be very careful about sharing emotions online, never share with strangers, and never message anyone when angry. 6. Never open message from someone they do not know. If they think it may be something important, they should seek parents to help them. 7. If the children feel uneasy about something, they are probably right, avoid letting them get into uneasy situations. 3. Online Predators According to Wolak, Finkelhor, Mitchell, and Ybarra (Feb-Mar 2008): “An online predator is an adult Internet user who exploits vulnerable children or teens, usually for sexual or other abusive purposes.” 1. Educate your children about avoiding sex talk online Recent research shows that teens who don’t talk about sex with strangers online are less likely to come in contact with a predator. 2. Encourage kids to talk to you when they have been cyber bullied or think they have met with an online predator. 3. Be sure that they know how to report abuse. For example, on Facebook, this can be done by emailing abuse@facebook.com. 4. Invasion of Privacy, identity theft and phishing scams Invasion of privacy can easily happen if children are not careful with managing their accounts or sharing passwords. Identity theft and phishing scams are becoming more frequent when too much personal information is available. Phishing scams are attempts to trick you into giving up personal information, including passwords, social security numbers, and credit cards numbers, through phony requests or solicitations that appear to come from legitimate sources. Do not fall for phishing scams that arrive via email or on your wall, providing a link for you to click, leading to a fake login page. I feel that although realistically our children today are going to use Social Network Sites, we can still provide a healthy framework within the family that encourages comfortable and honest communication that will help us protect them from the dangers that exist online. Thus, they can use these sites for their own benefits, for recreative purposes, for socializing and even to learn and broaden their horizons. Conclusion Summarizing the main aspects dealt with above I would recommend parents to: 1. Be proactive a. Know the sites that your children are using b. Check your children’s online accounts c. Review your child’s friend lists d. Create your own account and become a friend to your children e. Ensure your kids follow age limit on sites 2. Use technology a. Use privacy settings, blocking unknown people and allowing only people that you know to access your children’s profiles. b. Run updated malware protection to avoid infections of spyware and adware. I believe that keeping in touch with all that is going on online, and being able to communicate effectively with your children about the dangers that may exist online is fundamental. Cybercrime is a new world of dangers that is relatively new to us, and the dangers posed can be very serious. This must not hinder us to make effective use of today’s new technologies. If we as parents were to encourage our children to feel free to tell us about the things they encounter online, I’m sure that we would be in a better situation to help them handle difficulties that may crop up, whether they were dangerous or merely uncomfortable. I shall conclude this short study with a quotation from Chinello, 2009, about the changes that the Internet is bringing to the world of relationships. “It has been proven that on the web, it is a bit easier to share troubles, hopes, fears, to speak of themes that might be embarrassing face to face because one fears the immediate reactions of the other. But this can be a double-edged sword because in not seeing the other, one can express himself with greater liberty, but he could say things that are not true, thereby losing personal identity. It's important to be aware of what we take of ourselves to the Net, our history, our hopes, our personal relationships.” References 1. Boyd, D. (2006). Identity production in a networked culture: Why youth heart MySpace. American Association for the Advancement of Science 2. Boyd, D. and J. 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