Living an online life appears to be much safer these days: you do not have to tell your colleagues to wear a face mask and argue constantly about whether they should wear it under or over their noses. There is no need to explain a refusal to hug and kiss your relatives when all parties are online. But while the shift to the digital world promises less stress and fear from personal encounters and its remoteness offers a safe, virus-free environment, there are still things users should be wary of.
“From an early age, children should be taught that their communication of all sorts leaves a digital trace.”
The UK government have delivered 1.3 million laptops and tablets to children and young people since May 2020 in order to support their education during the pandemic. There is, however, very little spoken of the enormous world behind the screens. There were times when children learned about the differences between hardware and software during IT classes: terminology like motherboard, RAM, spyware, or even Internet were discussed and explained. With many children now exposed to technology from as young as three, there is a certain expectation that these children who grew up with smartphones and tablets in their pushchairs do not need an introduction to the IT world. And this expectation is slowly becoming normalised, by adults and by children themselves too.
The 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal proved the dangers of simply maintaining an online media presence and the ways big tech companies can harvest and use your personal data to influence you without your knowledge. And yet little has been done to help educate people on how to avoid such violations.
With technology evolving and transforming our everyday lives, there is a desperate need for genuine education on this topic. Now, with schools, colleges, and workplaces closed, the ongoing pandemic has only accelerated this need. From an early age, children should be taught that all their communication leaves a digital trace.
Would you ever drive a car without knowing how it works?
For most people, reading manuals is probably not an enjoyable activity but unless you have someone experienced with you, it is something that needs to be done. Always. The internet is surely one of the greatest inventions in the world, but using it without at least some knowledge can irrevocably change its users’ lives.
Although this recent and tremendous shift to our laptop screens opened doors to many new positive opportunities, it has also opened people up to increased harassment such as sending extreme pornography material during online lectures or stalking those victims who try to seek help during lockdowns.
In a recent FT article, Sophie Mortimer, a manager at a helpline supporting those who experience online abuse, talks about so-called sexploitation. It is a blackmailing tactic used by abusers who intimidate their victims with the threat of the publication of their sexual images. In the article, Mortimer mentions how the number of cases has doubled in the past year.
“Online safety is just as important as physical safety.”
According to the Statista survey, there were around 4.6 billion active internet users in October 2020, of which 4.14 billion were users of social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram. In 2019, UNICEF released results from a poll which detected that one in three young people in 30 countries have been victims of cyberbullying.
Threats like cyberbullying, invasion of privacy, identity theft, or even being exposed to offensive pictures and messages are common online dangers which should be widely known. A common safeguarding procedure to ward against these threats is to make your online profile private. However, it seems that many young people are either unaware or regard such actions as unimportant, as only 17.5% of young people reportedly made their social profiles private in 2020.
The digital shift
In light of the online shift in the past year, HR departments have been arranging well-being webinars to encourage employees to participate every week to help combat these new, unprecedented struggles. However, the old jibes about how ‘people should spend less time on computers’ are becoming a thing of the past as modern life evolves and calls for everyone to be connected in order to work, study, or socialise.
And so it seems that maintaining awareness of our online presence and the digital footprint we leave is something that needs to become more commonplace: modern technology is only going to develop further and become more and more integral to our lives.
In essence, online safety is just as important as physical safety and so, therefore, it is always important to read the manual – to yourself, your family, and your friends.
Sara Davidkova
Featured image courtesy of Sergey Zolkin on Unsplash. Image license found here. No changes were made to this image.
Sara Davies
Freelance journalist and photographer with varied experience in local news, feature and travel writing, research, communication and social media.