School Monitoring of Social Media

The technological advances of social media have brought about new ways for teenagers to interact with each other. These new interactions provide opportunities as well as challenges. Social network sites like Myspace and Facebook serve as "networked publics. As with unmediated publics like parks and malls, youth use networked publics to gather, socialize with their peers, and make sense of and help build the culture around them.” (Boyd, n.p.). These networked publics have also brought about new ways for teenagers to bully and attack each other.

The use of social networking sites to bully peers has become a concern for parents and educators alike as the media portray the phenomenon as deadly and debilitating. This has occurred as a reaction to a wave of teenage suicides that were reported in the national media to be a result of cyberbullying, widely accepted now as the new face of bullying. While a child used to be able to escape from bullying by going home the constant access to social media sites provide no respite from the constant abuse. This has prompted educators to begin considering the surveillance of students’ social networking sites in order to prevent the students from engaging in cyberbullying. The arguments for and against the monitoring of social media will be explored to develop a deeper understanding of these issues.

I would make the argument schools should not monitor their students’ social networking sites. While some benefit could be made for the use of monitoring to prevent bullying it could not be guaranteed that the monitoring would be put to the use. Rather social media can be used to penalize students of posts that are made about a student’s personal life. I have had experience both in high school and college settings where students could be removed from programs if they were seen in photos on social networking sites. Universities and employers have also begun to utilize social networking sites to make hiring and admission decisions (Kluemper). The use of social networking sites for these purposes violates the rights of students. Social media usage could also have some benefits. “But we may do adolescents a disservice when we curtail their participation in these spaces, because the educational and psychosocial benefits of this type of communication can far outweigh the potential dangers” (Tynes, p. 575). Constant monitoring of their activity may prevent students from obtaining the positive benefits of social media networking.

Arguments have been made of the benefits for the monitoring of teenage use of social networking sites. These arguments state that social networking sites provide an arena for teenagers to bully other anonymously and effectively versus traditional bullying. Social networking sites can also be used by child predators to target their victims. As studies have found that victims of cyberbullying “knew their perpetrator and 42% who reported being cyberbullied were also bullied at school” (Livingstone, p. 78). The proponents of monitoring would state that schools can protect the children through watching their activity on these sites. The argument could be made that the safety of the children is more important than their privacy especially at a young age. However, children will eventually need to be taught responsibility of social media usage. While monitoring provides supervision, it does not guarantee that children will learn the tools that they need to engage in responsible social media usage without being taught by their parents.

The argument of safety attracts me to the other side of the debate as I feel that the monitoring of the sites could be beneficial and may possibly improve the safety of children and teenagers. This is especially the case since the internet provides an anonymous environment for predators. “Social networking sites (SNS) have been criticized for serving as a breeding ground for cyber-bullying and harassment by strangers” (Sengupta). It has, in fact, become a national epidemic. While technology can be used for evil by predators and teenagers, it may also be used by schools as prevention of cyberbullying. There are also errors within my position against the monitoring of social media sites. My position also implies that schools may misuse their power however this has not been demonstrated by any research studies on the issue. With guidelines for effective monitoring without infringing on the rights of children, the monitoring of social media sites may be put to good use.

The technological advances of our age have brought upon remarkable changes and improvements in our daily lives. However, with the changes come new challenges that need to be addressed. While cyberbullying cannot be ignored taking steps to monitor every child’s social media usage is inefficient and infringes on their rights. Rather educators and parents must work together to provide both education and adequate supervision on the use of the social media sites. “Prevention efforts may have a greater impact if they focus on the psychosocial problems of youth instead of a specific Internet application, including funding for online youth outreach programs, school antibullying programs, and online mental health services” (Ybarra, p. 350).

Increased funding and research need to be devoted to effective methods of cyberbullying prevention rather than just monitoring social media sites. As it takes a village to raise children not big brother.

Works Cited

Boyd, Danah. "Why youth (heart) social network sites: The role of networked publics in teenage social life." (2009).

Kluemper, Donald H., and Peter A. Rosen. "Future employment selection methods: evaluating social networking web sites." Journal of Managerial Psychology 24.6 (2009): 567-580.

Livingstone, Sonia, and David R. Brake. "On the rapid rise of social networking sites: New findings and policy implications." Children & society 24.1 (2010): 75-83.

Sengupta, Anirban, and Anoshua Chaudhuri. "Are social networking sites a source of online harassment for teens? Evidence from survey data." Children and Youth Services Review 33.2 (2011): 284-290.

Tynes, Brendesha M. "Internet safety gone wild? Sacrificing the educational and psychosocial benefits of online social environments." Journal of Adolescent Research 22.6 (2007): 575-584.

Ybarra, Michele L., and Kimberly J. Mitchell. "How risky are social networking sites? A comparison of places online where youth sexual solicitation and harassment occurs." Pediatrics 121.2 (2008): e350-e357.