So Facebook is free, and we are quick to quick the agree button on the contract.
Who cares what data they are getting from us, if it is all going towards massive data accounts?
But imagine being an eight-year old in 2015.
Now, imagine your mom being your biggest data enemy.
10 years ago, your mom (or dad) was probably worried about you not staying over late at a friend’s house. Now, the conversation is much more challenging and complex for parents, who have to worry about cyberspace, a realm that they did not grow up in.
Nick Bilton with the New York Times wrote an article about the importance of transparency between parents and their children. He talked about the three rooms with apps being the door to these worlds.
Door 1 leads to the public world, as if it was leaving the house to meet friends on Instagram, Twitter, and Youtube.
Door 2 leads to the private world, as if it was the house itself, where Snapchat and Telegram are temporary.
Door 3 is the anonymous world, where the identity of all users are hidden. Think of it as a publicly available, community driven diary.
I think parents have a lot of work to do to figure out what apps are out there, what purposes does each app have, and how much should they limit their children from playing with the apps. Unfortunately, for the young generation, having a social life incorporates so much of their digital life as well. Children could get bullied for not being on social networks, which are places that can help relieve the stress. With social networking become a valued skill in the workforce, it is important to have conversations with your children about the importance of digital forces that we may not see.