This morning I conducted my first parenting seminar on the topic of The Digital Life of Teens at the church where I’m the youth pastor. Besides attendance being EMBARRASSINGLY low, the seminar itself was a hit with those who attended. I went in expecting to talk mostly about how teens are using technology and what it means for us as adults. What I ended up talking about turned out to be a bit different than I expected.
Like I said, attendance was inordinately low. I truly appreciated all those who came out for the seminar but we were about 1/10th of what I conservatively anticipated. So right off the bat I knew my seminar format would have to be adjusted a little if I was going to pull this off. I decided to change to more of a discussion-centric format which I’m very comfortable with. I strongly encouraged the audience to raise their hands, ask questions, and make me define terms as I went along. In effect, the audience was going to steer this seminar to a moderate degree.
I started out defining terms such as Social Networking Site, Blog, Profile, Comments, Public, ISP and Cookie. I then jumped right in and started talking about common myths associated with teens and the Internet. Most of the myths I discussed had to do with the victimization of teens online. The audience was moderately interested in these topics but by and large they didn’t care much for it.
Then I began discussing Internet Privacy, Personally Identifying Information and Non-personally Identifying Information. At this point the audience came alive with questions. I was fielding questions from all directions. One person asked what “defrag” meant. It was a topic that, to me, was obviously way outside the scope of this seminar. But to this person, and others as well, this was a pertinent question.
When I use my computer I tend to compartmentalize things. I’ve got the computer itself, then I’ve got the software, and then out there is the Internet. I know how they work together, and how disjointed they can be. What I found through this seminar is that my audience didn’t necessarily make those distinctions. For sure, they cognitively knew the difference between the technologies. But in their mind, they had not figured out how they were all correlated.
I realized that as I was talking about how Teens are using Social Networking Sites and how to be safe online (and off) my audience was still trying to figure out the difference between phishing emails and pop up (and pop under) ads.
We ended up having great discussion about what makes a strong password. They loved talking about Internet privacy and the fact that true privacy does not exist. We didn’t get to talk much about how teens use technology, but I think I met a felt need of my audience.
As a result I’m already planning another seminar but this time I’m going to focus around these hot topics in my area: Internet privacy, computer security and caring for your computer.
