Cyber bullying, student violence at school and teenage suicide is a growing concern in grades K-12 in schools across the nation. Some schools are monitoring the social media posts of students in an effort to combat these problems and require students to disclose their social network passwords to school officials. Many students and parents oppose such monitoring, citing an invasion of student privacy.
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No, I do not think that monitoring a student's social media is an effective tool. Having educators have access to student social media not only can be concerning in terms of privacy matters, but it could actually be quite dangerous, especially if an educator decideds to stalk or find conversations on social media that were assumed to be private. What I think would be a more reasonable endeavor is either making the use of social media illegal until the student is at least 18 years of age. While I think this may work for in some conditions, others may counter with the argument that banning social media is infringing on privacy rights in a different manner, and even if you could ban specific social media, how exactly could you define it, and how could people get around this. For example, if I am using a service like Xbox, that allows me to chat with other people when playing videogames, is that social media, or is that communication with another person. If the solution that people come to is to completely ban social media from the different kinds of services that are present, it may have to define what social media is, so the government is not overstepping boundaries into the lives of minors.
ReplyDeleteAnother route that could be taken is to require each student to have the account tied to their school. Similar to a school email, it would be registered in the name of the school that each student is currently attending, and for this solution, there would have to be a feature that would allow administrators to go through these accounts, but only if there is probable cause of bullying. In other words, administrators and other people who are in charge of addressing bullying and cyberbullying are able to look at these accounts only if bullying is seen as a proper issue. Separating the people who overlook the social media of the children, or even outsourcing it to the various companies that control it could be an effective way to make sure that cyberbullying can be effectively monitored when possible. This way, even if there are cases of cyberbullying, it can be carefully controlled and found out, and the right people can be found and punished accordingly.
I strongly suggest that this does not happen. This may help a little with the act of cyberbullying, but I don't think that a school should have jurisdiction of a kid's online life outside of school. I believe that giving the school access to your account would not be the safest of options and it will also arise questions. A few of mine for instance are when and how often does the school officials monitor the accounts of all the kids in the school? My second question is what happens to the passwords after you graduate, does the school keep them and how easy is it for students to access other people's accounts? My last question is about the officials and how will they be able to manage so many kids accounts if the school is a big regional or city school?
ReplyDeleteI believe that such monitoring is not sound in today's digital world because the purpose of the school is to educate the students. I can understand that the school must step in in situations such as continuous bullying at the school that prevents students from learning. However, giving passwords to school officials to allow them to monitor your online history is too far. The school should not have this level of power and surveillance. I believe that this kind of policy is unnecessary for a positive learning environment, and that what the students post is none of the school's concern unless it is an issue that causes un-ignorable disruptions to the learning environment.
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