Raising Informed Digital Citizens

Angeline: Welcome to another episode, I'm your host, Angeline Corvaglia. I'm here with Alyssa Coon, who's a privacy attorney and privacy consultant. I'm so excited to talk to Alyssa because when she told me about how she raises her informed digital citizens at home, it kind of blew me away because it just is an alternative method that's really empowers the kids.

And I'm really looking forward to sharing that with a wider audience.

Alyssa: I am too. I think what you do is fantastic. It's absolutely wonderful content and I utilise a kind of a similar approach just informing them, right? So I've got a nine year old and a seven year old and obviously technology is rampant and I don't want to tell them no.

And it's hard for me to keep up, right? But it's sort of, okay, before we go, when we purchase anything, we've got to understand what it does. What's the purpose? Understand what information it's capturing. And so it's being real honest and it can be really difficult to kind of take that pause and admit that you don't know everything and that you don't fully understand something.

I don't know. I think it makes you more human as a parent and it makes my son stop and think, well, let's look it up, right? Let's look at what do these ratings mean? What's the description? What's the content that's in there? What does that mean for you? Right? Are you prepared to look at that content? Are you prepared to have conversations around what that content might be?

Graphic violence, right? Blood and gore and those types of things. You know, what does that mean? And what is the difference between fiction and reality? It's extremely fun just to keep kind of an open mind. My daughter, you know, seven years old, my biggest thing with her is not oversharing, right? So it's less about, she doesn't go and find the technology.

And someone was asking her what her age was like, Oh, how old are you? And she's like, I don't see how that's relevant. I don't know, you don't need to know my, my age. And I thought it was hilarious, because my kids, our rule is, if you're engaging in chat or any of that stuff, you've got to be in a main area, right?

So in our living room, where I can hear, my husband can hear, and we can kind of see what's going on, so not in your rooms. But I thought that was great, it was one of those, because I had told her, they don't need to know your name, they don't need to know the city you're in, they don't need to know your age, what school you go to, you know, it's a virtual world, right?

So you don't need to disclose anything. You are, you're game or tag, and that's it, right? You can give them an age range if you want to, but it shouldn't be relevant. And it was great to hear a seven year old say that.

Because that's critical thinking, and at such age, and as you were saying, there's so much to unpack with what you were just saying, I mean, And just to start with, you're saying, okay, parents need to not be afraid to admit that they don't know things. I would take a step further that parents need to just admit that it's nearly impossible that they do know.

And that's a big mentality change from all the past generations, as far as I'm aware, I'm not a historian, is that we cannot keep up with what the kids are doing online. I think we don't have a chance, we can hardly keep up with. Where AI is placed, where is our data being taken? Much less understand where kids, for example, recently discovered that the main place that kids Engage with chatbots is not chatGBT, but Snapchat AI.

Alyssa: Yeah, and I think it's having that open dialogue. My son knows, you know, not to download things. Obviously, he's nine, right? You can't download things on your own. He's not purchasing things on his own. So he comes to me and that's when we kind of had that conversation.

I learned real quick, he's gonna know more about it when he comes and presents it to me because he's already done a little bit of thinking and thinking on it, right? He's, he's tinkered and looked it up. And I think it's fun. I think it's creating the awareness that the ratings mean something, and the permission settings mean something, and that, you know, having those conversations around it.

And then the privacy, right? So having the privacy notice. I love when my son comes to me and he wants to do something, and there's that pop up, right? And as a privacy attorney, right, I draft notices. Part of what I do is reading the terms and conditions. So it's reading it and saying, okay, it wants access to your camera.

Is it an optional thing where you can still play the game, it's just you're not giving away that data? It's an important principle. As parents, we don't always know what our rights are or what makes sense, right? You don't want to just click the box. You want to sit through and really think. And I think Teaching them to think through it, right, is really important, and yeah, I think, like I said, the core thing is acknowledging that you don't know it, and so it empowers them to feel, well, I don't know it either, right, and it's okay to live in this unknown when it's something new and novel, because that's, that's going to be their entire life.

You know, this technology is going to constantly evolve, and you don't want them to feel, like, afraid to ask questions or express that ignorance, because I wouldn't want them to go up to someone and pretend they know something, and they don't, and they, I don't know, they end up sharing too much information, or not the right amount of information.

But it's just, it's different now. It's developing. And, and I agree with you that it's one of the biggest gifts that we can give to our kids is teach them, ask questions. There's nothing wrong with not knowing. And another thing I wanted to ask you, because this for me really brought the point home where you, you told me in the previous chat about one of the games where you were reading about the ratings and you said, your son, Has to be able to have certain conversations with you if he wants to play the games.

Alyssa: Yeah, so some of these games it's mature content or sexual content or something like that. And you know, so when we're looking at the game, we go and we look at the description and we look at the reviews and what it says and I'm like, are you ready to have a conversation about what sexual content is and what's appropriate and all that?

And if you don't want to have the conversation to prep you for that content, then maybe we're not ready for it. And it's been He's very open to just saying, Nope, don't want it. As soon as we read that in there, it's very uncomfortable, you know? And I mean, that's a larger conversation around the birds and the bees.

Angeline: It's amazing. Yeah. My daughters are on the same ages as your children, and it is amazing where they're at a moment where they're just seeping these things up. And then in a moment where, for example, you don't necessarily give the right answer, Or have the right answer, you've built a certain level of trust.

Why? And I couldn't give her an answer. And she was like, Okay, I trust you, but you're gonna come back to me and tell me

Alyssa: No, that's good! That's good that she trusts you, and sometimes it is, it's like You know, like, if I take away the tablet because my daughter does something wrong, right, and it's sort of a, you know, why did I take it away?

I've explained to her that, you know, you were on it too long. I asked you to get off and you were on it past the time that you needed to be. And then if she wants it back, I'm like, I have to think about it. You know, I need to think about, are you going to listen? Are you going to abide by the rules? And I think that if it's not a part of their life and then it becomes a part of their life, you do need to just be honest with yourself and be honest with them.

Just say, I need to think about it. Because then, you know, I might want to set limits and I want to might set. parameters for it or have a conversation and you need to give me time to get ready for that and that way we can both be engaged in this and be okay, because I don't want to give it to you and then immediately feel regret or oh, I didn't tell you this or I didn't tell you not to do this or didn't explain what I was expecting.

What are you, what are you looking to do? What are you wanting to accomplish, right? You want to, you know, go into text messages, who are you going to text message, right? And she knows I'm not going to say no necessarily, I just want to understand. Because then I can say, oh, okay, we'll only do it to these people, I'll only do it for this long, or, you know, this and that.

But then we have this conversation, right? We're navigating and negotiating a social contract. In that moment, you know, I'm not assuming that he's going to do something nefarious or I'm not assuming that she's not going to do something nefarious. I want to take assumption out of it.

Angeline: Exactly. That's also important to not, you know, assume a certain level of trust with checking.

Alyssa: No, I do. I've got, with my son's phone, like, I have access to, I can see, you know, who he's communicating with and everything. But I don't want to rely on that.

I'd rather have, you know, the trust. So I do have the restriction settings and I've got all of that on the different devices so that they can't see certain things. I've got the, the child profiles set up where necessary. I actually don't tell them that. I want them to have that conversation. Um, and there are some times where my son will come against some of the parameters and he's like, Mom, it won't let me do this.

It's restricted. And then I'll talk about, okay, well this is what the restriction is setting at. What exactly are you trying to get at? I lead with the trust. I, I like their trust. But I do, you know, on the back end, control someplace. You know, on my mommy game, right? Because we can't be there 100 percent of the time.

If they go and grab the device and I'm on a call or I'm doing something, right? I still want to have some extra, you know, barrier there.

Do you have any experience with other parents or from other kids, how the dialogue might change when they get, you know, 14, 15, 16, and a lot of kids are, are kind of free online without the controls?

Alyssa: Yeah, most of the parents that I engage with, it's, there's two schools, right? There's the ones that just, they let them, the technology, and they are, they're hoping that the kids don't have access to it, right?

So, kind of like what you're seeing in Florida and, you know, kind of around where like, nope, you're just, you know, until you're 15 or 16, you're not having access to it. And I think you do have this window where they're 12, 13, 14, where you need to give them access. A lot of parents also just, they rely solely on the restrictive settings.

You know, permanence is something that I talk to my daughter about, right? She likes to film little videos and things like that. And I just say, you've just got to be mindful of what you say when you are on social media. It will live forever. You can't guarantee that it gets removed. So I think as the restrictions lessen and they have more access, I think that's when the conversations become more important.

And I'm not sure that everybody feels comfortable having those conversations, but it's sort of like the birds and the bees. It's sort of like any other parental guiding conversation around bullying and things like that. You need to temper them. I do think that, like you said, at, you know, nine, The peer pressure isn't there, but, you know, 10, 11, 12, 13, you're going to have a lot more of that.

People feel a sense of power, you know, they can't see you and they're not face to face. So when you text something, you can text something that's a lot meaner, you know, and a lot more hurtful. Then you would say to a person's face, people get brave, right? They, they, this false sense of security and bravery.

And I think that's an important conversation. I've had a little bit of that with my son, but you know, most of his stuff is very high level. He's got a lot of, a good group of friends and he's limited in who he communicates with. But I, I have told him, you know, you don't want to say anything hurtful to someone else, right?

You don't want to feel the sense of false courage, right? That you could say something and it doesn't matter. It just disappears. It's words on a, on a text message. Because what you say. Can have lasting impacts because you don't know. In an email or text message, you lose that sense of the context, right?

And I'm just like, this is, it's really confusing. You're just sending all these gifts and everything. It was silly stuff, right? But I'm like, you gotta be mindful of her time, right? She was with her friends and You know, she kind of said, let's talk later. So I think when they get older, it's going to be more important that they understand the impact of their words so that they could also understand the impact of other people's words and images, right?

Which are sharing, because there's just not that contact. I haven't found any really good resources, but I don't think I've got like one person that has done it really well for that transition.

Angeline: Yeah, yeah. I mean, as you say, each family is different. It's kind of hard. It's hard to know what the best practice is.

That's also a risk, that if you're just relying on the controls. There's legal limits. I don't know if these are legal limits, but you probably know that at some point you cannot control them because they're of their age of consent and, and if they haven't, haven't had these conversations, it's just been controlled all of a sudden, this online world comes crashing down on them.

I think that maybe is another reason why parents have difficulty having these conversations, right? Because they don't want their child to, to know what kind of people they might encounter.

Alyssa: No! I mean, it's stranger danger, but in a whole new world, right? And the types of dangers are a little more profound and scary on the internet, right?

It's not just, oh, someone can snatch you up, right? Like, don't say hi, and don't take candy from strangers, right? Like when you were a kid, don't go into people's cars or houses. You're there and you know, some of these people that are in these rooms, they're pretending to be kids, right? And you know, you have no idea what their intent is.

So setting up meetings and exchanging personal information, I mean, I have conversations with my kids like that you should interact with a child a couple of times before you friend them. 'cause in some of these games you can, you know, put people as pens, right? Mm-hmm . And then that's where the chat and stuff like that.

It's scary. But I think if you don't give them a little sense of being leery, then you're doing them a disservice. Like you said with your friend, if all of a sudden the guardrails are out, then they don't really know, you know, what's out there. So, and approach it bite sized pieces, right? You don't want to tell them that there are horrible predators and the world is a nasty place and everybody's out to get them.

But just letting them know that it's not always what it seems, right? I mean, you don't, you don't even know what the person at this point that you're engaging is. Yeah,

Angeline: exactly. I was just going to say that, but I was just reading some, some research that last week I spent a lot of time researching these chat bots, these AI chat bots and how cyber predators use them and how AI has made their job much more efficient because they can just program the chat bot.

All you can do is As you said, teach them to be informed, ask questions, critical thinking.

Alyssa: Yeah, it really is. It's kind of going back to basics, right? Like the stranger danger and things like that. Just being aware of your surroundings. And even if it's a virtual world, being aware of the surroundings. If something doesn't feel right, then it's probably not right, right?

I read an article. And it was, it was, you know, show an interest in what your kids are looking at, right? The games that they're playing and things like that. It'll give you insight into what their mental state is, right? So it's kind of a psychology thing. Yes, but what kind of games are they playing? Are they playing a lot of first person shooters, right?

Are they, are they, what kind of, are they creating people, right? Are they doing games where they're creating avatars and building worlds? It can give you insight into what they're interested in. It also will give you insight into the risks that they are taking. They have, right? Because you can look at those games and kind of read the reviews and kind of understand what types of interactions are happening in that game.

And then you can maybe have an informed conversation specific to an application or a game or a service, right? I've done that. My son's recently entered this game called Half Life and so he's explaining it to me. And I'm sitting there and I'm Googling, like, what everything there is to know about Half Life, right?

And like, what's real and what's not real and this type of thing. I don't know. For me, if there's a childlike wonder with it, I love technology, you know, I think it's, so it's easier for me to kind of approach it that way, but I would try to empower people, you know, parents, especially, and guardians, just to find that childlike wonder, you know, if your kid is interested in something, Be interested in it too, and that can be something that you can share an interest in, and that will empower you to make an informed decision, and you can bond over it, right?

Angeline: Exactly, I was thinking, just because we're almost out of time, but I'm just going to close with this thought because that reminded me back in the day when I was a teenager. It wasn't so easy for parents to get involved in things that their children were involved in because you had to physically go somewhere.

Angeline: Your parent, your kids are like, oh mom, dad, but now you can just log on to the game yourself and play the game or go on to their social media and, and, and, you know, kind of get a feel for it. You can do it without being so obvious to them that they will be embarrassed by your presence.

That's a great point. Thank you so much. I don't know, just for closing, do you want to give some last hot tip also from your position as a privacy lawyer, attorney?

Alyssa: I would say that you have rights, your children have rights, and the rights include not sharing information when it doesn't fit. So if there's not a need to share it, then you should think about not sharing it.

Sharing it. So, just being mindful. You don't always have to share your location. You don't always have to share your access to your camera or your photos or, you know, other content on your phone. Being mindful of what you're putting out there and when you're getting access on your device or if you're uploading stuff.

It wasn't necessary. And so sometimes we'll do it just as a fluke, okay, if we don't put the camera on, does the game still function? So, you know, it is, it's a why. It is for everybody. You know, just question. Why do I need to give you all of this information on an application or a form? You know, every single time you fill out something, you have to fill in your address.

You know, how many times would you need my address? So just question it. Like I said, coming back to why, just always ask why before you're sharing your personal information. Because once you share it, you can't take it back. It's out there. Can't put the glue back in the bottle, right? It's gone.

Angeline: Thank you so much.

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