Do Parents Teach Their Kids to Fear Online Culture?

According to Danah Boyd, there are a lot of misconceptions by parents about what life online for teens entails. While the data shows that students are still bullied the most in school, and that the Internet hasn't increased bullying, parents can't see what happens at school the way they can see what happens online. Because it's more visible to them, parents teach their kids to fear online culture as a way to control them, the same way media and marketers do, Boyd says. In turn, kids are using this increased attention to their life online to be mean to others online, to get more attention for themselves, creating more fear and garnering more attention. It is an interesting theory and there is a certain logic to it. The best way to make sure you don’t fall into this parent trap is to have an online life of your own so that you can talk as a partner with kids about what you are both encountering and brainstorm ways of handling it.