Stephen Carrick-Davies, Chief Executive of ChildNet International is keen to promote the positive that handheld and connected technologies can offer but also spends the lion's share of its time responding to tens of thousands of questions from young people and parents about what info they give away online.
"If you took away my mobile phone you would take away part of me"
The argument about 'duty of care' is not the only one nowadays. Duty of care is about understanding why this technology is important and how to keep it safe without taking it away. You don't need to know how the combustion engine works to know that your kid has to wear a seatbelt.
The issues
Commerce: Invasion of privacy; Blur between advertising and information
Content: Inaccurate or extreme; self-created media
Contact: Unwanted contact, bullying, predators.
Social media is presenting some challenges because young people are not reporting inappropriate communication for fear of having their Bebo page confiscated or being seen as "being at fault" themselves.
Stephen has just said that he would like to get in touch and help out organisations and schools which want to engage with safety with children as young as nine years old. That's exactly what we are doing in East Lothian. And just as the chair has said happened to him when he last talked to Primary parents about safety, I have been disappointed at how few parents show up to sessions about the online safety of their kids. Can't wait to wag chins with Stephen on how we can make things better.
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