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Education Technology News: NextAdvisor Founder Weighs in on the 'New Playground' for School Bullying, Facebook
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Education Featured Article

June 09, 2011

NextAdvisor Founder Weighs in on the 'New Playground' for School Bullying, Facebook

By Carrie Schmelkin, TMCnet Web Editor


We’ve all heard the horror stories. A 16-year-old girl finds out that some of her classmates have created a fake Facebook (News - Alert) account under her name and have used her picture and filled her profile with salacious information. Or, a group of teenagers discover that Facebook walls and Facebook groups are the perfect place to impose the latest bullying tactics.


In a world plagued by cyber bullying, it seems that the one social media site that students are turning to the most for fun is also one of the greatest sources of anguish and peril.

“Like most technology, Facebook makes things more efficient,” Erik Larson, founder of the website nextadvisor.com, told TMCnet in a recent interview. “It makes communication more efficient which is great in a lot of ways, but it also has its drawbacks in that something like bullying can be a lot more efficient as well. It cuts down the barriers to something like bullying.”

NextAdvisor is a site that reviews and compares some of the most valuable new Internet services and helps consumers understand how each service works so that they can become informed buyers. It also, however, publishes blog posts exploring some issues that can arise with Facebook use such as cyber bullying, identify theft and fraud.

Recently, Larson sat down with TMCnet to discuss how the world’s most popular social networking site can find its way negatively into the classroom and how NextAdvisor is attempting to help guide others through a site that has quickly been dubbed the newest playground for bullying.

Whereas traditional bullying required someone actually going out and confronting a victim to his/her face, with a tool like Facebook the barriers are removed and the consequences are immediate, according to Larson.

“We have to be realistic that we know that bullying has always been a problem and probably always will be and that a lot of things that are happening online are a reflection of what’s happening offline,” he said. “I wouldn’t say that Facebook is the cause of any bullying, it’s just more of a reflection of what is going on offline.”

NextAdvisor has received an influx of questions from its site visitors about Facebook, particularly with regards to identify theft and parental controls. The site has written several guides about Facebook privacy settings, touching specifically on how kids can better navigate social media waters.

For example, NextAdvisor recently answered the question “How can I remove a fake profile of myself from Facebook?” and posted an article called “The New Facebook Identity Theft Prevention Guide.”

Part of NextAdvisor’s suggestions for teenagers is that they be cognizant of what type of information they are putting up there. The company suggests that teenagers change all their default privacy settings so that only people they know can access their profiles.

“A big issue with kids is that they maybe have a false sense of security about what they are putting online,” Larson said. “Even if they think they are just sharing with friends and friends of friends once you get to friends of friends that can be a pretty wide circle; that can be pretty much anyone.

“Facebook is such a powerful and important communications tool for students that they may have hundreds and in many cases thousands of friends, so they just really need to think about and be concerned about what they are putting on there and realize that even if they are being careful with their settings they should make the assumption that anyone can see it,” he added.

Yet kids, even those as young as 9 and 10, seem to be unconcerned with the perils of Facebook, as a recent Consumer Reports study showed that 7.5 million children under the age of 13 are on Facebook, even though Facebook prohibits children from under 13 from signing up. This means that children who are not even in middle school are using the social networking tool.

“It’s just real dangerous,” Larson said. “If parents really thought about the implications and understood them they probably would care a little bit more.”

“Particularly for students, it’s going to be an issue using the service because Facebook is always going to be pushing you to be more open and to share more information but they haven’t always done a good job of telling you that they are doing that,” he said.


Carrie Schmelkin is a Web Editor for TMCnet. Previously, she worked as Assistant Editor at the New Canaan Advertiser, a 102-year-old weekly newspaper, covering news and enhancing the publication's social media initiatives. Carrie holds a bachelor's degree in journalism and a bachelor's degree in English from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Rich Steeves
 


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