ok now i know this is long but i will highlight the important points to the argument, and it is worth it, is even just for knowledge for future teachers/parents out there.....
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Cyberspace, Deviance, and Children
by Terry Gudaitis
iMP Magazine, June 1999
Republished with permission
The violent incident at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado last April has opened a Pandora's box of issues relating to children, violence, and the Internet. At the core of the problem, at least from the perspective of a behavioral scientist, is that the warning signs of violence were either not recognized, or woefully not heeded.
The problem, however, expands more widely than just the violence that transpired in Colorado - and at other schools around the country recently. Violent expression is just one of many deviant behaviors demonstrated over the Internet and through computer use. Hacking, cracking, forging, spamming, and sporging are occurring everywhere. The bottom line is that children are not being socialized to use computers or how to behave on the Internet.
There are many people and companies who issue defensive or protective information and tools: i.e., Internet blocking, parental keys, information on how to keep children safe from pedophiles and sex/pornographic sites. But little to nothing has been circulated on the offensive: How to make sure your child does not become a hacker or cracker? How to make sure it is not your child who is posting and proliferating violent or deviant information on the Internet? And, what are the rules of engagement regarding intellectual property, access, and copyrighted information on-line?
Again, the majority of literature available is protective rather than pro-active. We need to educate, socialize, and instill in children the same ethics and etiquette that is relevant to face-to-face social behavior. We need to extend that socialization process to include technical behaviors as well as interpersonal behaviors. For example, everyone probably has a voice that still rings in their heads, perhaps a grandmother's voice, " Don't run with scissors." Other social rules children are typically given include:
Don't read your sister's diary.
Don't open your father's briefcase.
Don't open your brother's mail (U.S. mail).
Say "please" and "thank you."
When you are writing a paper for school, reference/cite other authors and give them credit.
Don't take something that you did not pay for.
The similar social rules and behaviors are not being taught relative to cyber-interaction. While plenty of of literature instructs parents on how to keep their kids safe, parents need to start teaching their children at a very early age:
Don't read your sister's Word documents.
Don't open your father's files and folders.
Don't open your brother's e-mail.
When writing e-mail, remember to say "please" and "thank you" and don't automatically flame if someone does not agree with your perspective.
Don't copy or cut/paste other author's documents and claim them as your own.
Don't pirate software.
Parents and teachers need to become far more entrenched in the socialization process of children as it relates to cyber-behavior. These related cyber behaviors must ring as loudly as "don't run with scissors" in order to give children a strong ethical foundation regarding technical behavior. In the past, parents may have been able to acknowledge and overhear whom their children were talking with on the telephone, and what topics were being discussed (because many households only had one phone, which was located in a common area).
Now, layers of anonymity and privacy have been added when communicating via computer. The range of potential interactants has also increased exponentially. The computer is just another mode of communication -- just like the telephone, just like two cans and a string -- but with more participants. The technology has introduced another medium of interaction that demands rules, ethics, and behavioral socialization. The development and creation of web sites is a small example. If parents are paying for or sponsoring a web site for their children, it is their responsibility to understand and monitor its contents. Parents must also be responsible for the consequences that may extend from the content their children display. Allegedly, the content of the Columbine student's web site should have been a huge red warning flag.
The avoidance of responsibility and "passing the blame" for children's deviance is running rampant following recent school-shooting incidents in Colorado, Georgia, and elsewhere. New rules and laws have been suggested, such as:
Dress codes, no trench coats in school
More anti-gun laws
Placing suggestion boxes in front of principal's offices to encourage children to turn in other children.
These suggestions and others like them are all avoidance behaviors. These proposed "answers" have passed the blame and the responsibility onto inanimate objects (i.e., clothes), legislators and politicians, and worse yet, passed responsibility onto other children to recognize and report deviant behavior. These answers, so far, have been analogous to issuing Band-Aids for a problem that needs neurosurgery. Everyone needs to take a hard look in the mirror, stop passing the buck, face the responsibility, and if need be, accept the consequences. If we as adults do not step up to the plate and start swinging, the denial, avoidance, and deflection of the root causes of children, deviance, and computers will proliferate at an alarming rate.
The implications of only using Band-Aids as solutions will eventually catch up to us. If we simply tighten the gun laws without taking a more active and socializing role in the development of children's technical and interpersonal behavior, the children's cries for help (i.e., early warning signs of violence) will still result in a deviant or violent incident. It would be our fault if children move to the use of home cooked chemical or biological weapons just because the access to guns has been tightened with no additional attention or responsibility having been placed on the understanding and detection of early warning signs, interventions, and technical and interpersonal socialization by parents and teachers.
The implications of only using Band-Aids as solutions will and already has effected the workplace. Children are socializing themselves when it comes to on-line and computer behaviors. Their own set of rules and ethics are being formulated, and some of the "ethics" are unacceptable. For example, it is not unusual to be told in a professional employment interview with a candidate for a technical position that it is the systems administrators' fault if someone can hack through. Individuals being interviewed have actually stated, "if I don't take anything from the files, then its okay and no harm done," "if there is a (technical) door open, I will walk right through it," and "if I can get to it, then I guess I have just given myself access and authorization." These "children" (some college graduates now) have socialized themselves with the input of close to 30,000 hacker related web sites to truly believe accessing other people's electronic information is not wrong.
We need to move forward quickly and take responsibility. It is the responsibility of parents to teach and socialize their children at an early age (perhaps starting at 3-5 years old) how to behave appropriately on-line. It is the responsibility of teachers to enforce, instruct, and continue the technical and interpersonal socialization processes. It is the responsibility of private industry as a community service, specifically those companies in the high technology industries, to help educate parents and teachers regarding cyber-behavior. It is the responsibility of the governments and law-makers to understand technology and to establish and enforce cyber-laws that make sense and will benefit society.
Parents cannot be scared of technology and can no longer claim ignorance. Technology is only going to grow and change over time. Granted, parents typically rely upon those parenting skills and tools they learned from their parents - cyber-behavior was not in that original tool kit. Nevertheless, technical socialization and understanding must occur with the same vigor as interpersonal socialization.
Teachers and schools cannot be scared of lawsuits and bad press if they see behavioral warning signs from a student. Teachers and educators must learn and understand what these warning signs are and to act on them swiftly and appropriately. Teachers and schools cannot fear denial or retaliation from parents who do not believe their child is in danger or dangerous to others. Superintendents, principals, and other administrators cannot just use quick fix solutions to solve violent and deviant behavior.
Parents and educators have all learned and have unofficial mental lists of what constitutes "good child" behavior versus "bad child" behavior. It used to be very cut and dry and easy to judge. The good behavior list would contain behaviors such as: gets good grades, comes home for dinner, does not cut class, does homework, does not stay out after dark carousing with friends, does not do drugs or alcohol, and the list goes on. This list however, no longer identifies the good versus the bad.
The list has shifted. The adolescent hackers, crackers, and some school gunmen who have been caught display these "good" behaviors. They display these behaviors because they are in their bedrooms on the computer! What parent would prefer to have their child out of the house, after dark, hanging around with friends? Most would be more comfortable and feel safer with their child at home, in his/her room, "doing homework, " which is just code words for surfing. It is, perhaps, more dangerous on the Internet.
All adults need to take responsibility, learn the real issues, learn the technology, and become more in touch with the children. All adults need to learn the underlying issues regarding how children are communicating on-line, what children are communicating, and how they must be taught the appropriate ways to use and interact over cyberspace. There are no excuses not to understand "where your children are and what they are saying" even if they are saying it on-line.
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Dr. Terry Gudaitis(tgudaitis@globalintegrity.com) is a behavioral scientist/criminologist who has 12 years of experience in research and applied practice in the discipline of behavioral assessment and criminal profiling. She has provided domestic and international assessments and criminal profiles for academia, local law enforcement, federal agencies and bureaus, and private industry. Dr. Gudaitis' current areas of expertise include cyber-crime profiling, cyber-threat analysis, and risk assessment.
