R U An Inadvertent Cyber Bully?

Have you ever left an app with instant message abilities open on a different tab or even different window? Then you might have been a cyber bully perpetrator and didn't even know it!

© Andres Rodriguez | Dreamstime.com

This is common practice for many of us to have multiple tabs open online at the same time. Some of those tabs are open to social media sites like Facebook that have IM features to it. No big deal?

Well, probably not, unless you have any early adolescents as part of your IM contacts.

Cyber bullying is most prevalent among younger teens. More than half of teens who have experienced cyber bullying in the past several months are most likely to report that the form of bullying was by being ignored online.

That's right...being ignored.

This can happen intentionally, but it can also happen accidentally. Early adolescents tend to be concrete thinkers, they take the world at face value - everything is what it appears to be. Mr. Bean is a caricature of this. If they want to IM with you and your online icon is lit up, then subconsciously to an early adolescent you are available.

But if you are not? The lack of response is unnerving to a young person.

However, there is hope!

If you have a habit have using multiple tabs, make sure your message alerts are activated. If you are going to be away from your computer for a while, take the time to log off any IM enabled sites. Finally, teach younger teens and pre-teens to understand that a lit icon does not necessarily mean another person is there. They can understand this, they just need prompting. Also, teach them to be aware of how their icons may appear to their friends. This learned behavior can vastly reduce the number of perceived cyber bullying incidences.

How have you seen misunderstandings happen online because people were not physically sharing the same space?

Using Social Media To Connect Extended Family

© Swaminathan Narayanan | Dreamstime.com

Social media is a great tool to connect extended family with each other, especially considering the distances that often separate grandparents from grandchildren and cousins from each other and their aunts and uncles. The good news is that many teens think social media helps them stay in contact with extended family too. 


For extended families that travel together, one idea is to setup a family event page. Because the anticipation of the trip can be as much fun as the trip itself, a page like this will gain momentum quickly. Encourage those going on the trip to offer lodging, meal and activity ideas. Large groups tend to go back to the same place as they have been previously, so post some old pictures of past trips and links to new experiences. Tap into the cleverness of that crazy uncle who knows all the weird trivia to create games or contests, and then award winners at family gatherings. Use it during the trip as a place to post gathering times, locations and contact information, and encourage teens especially to post videos and pictures capturing family memories. 


Every family has their story, creating a place to gather memories and anticipate new ones will build connections both across and between generations.


How is your family using social media to keep connected with those you don't see regularly?

Don't Step In the Cow Poo!

My parent's were in town this weekend and re-shared a story of a time when my son was about 3 years old and staying with my parents on their cattle ranch. Walking across the cow pasture, Grandma helped avoid the numerous cow pies with a simple warning to watch out for the cow poo. As they zig-zagged across the field, they came to the winter feeding area, one end of which had a rather large mound of cow manure that the tractors had pushed out of the feeding area to clear the ground. What was a fairly disgusting hill to most adults became a Mt. Everest that needed to be conquered in a child's mind. With surprising speed and determination, grandson tore off to climb manure mountain, leaving grandma in the dust with little to stop the horrifying collision of child and poo but a shouting appeal to STOP, DON'T CLIMB THAT HILL!

© Serghei Starus | Dreamstime.com

Whether it was the shrill in grandma's voice, fear of the unknown or the action of an obedient child, forturnately for grandma, her grandson stopped short of becoming a brown ball of muck. Of course, bewildered, he turned to grandma to ask why not, to which the instructive reply came that the hill was in fact a really large pile of cow poo. Confused, my son turned back to the hill of manure, studying it for a moment before asking a simple question of childhood wonder:

"Was that a big cow?"

Experience is a great thing. From experience we gain wisdom, we develop an ability for insight, and we use it to frame an intuitive understanding of what we are experiencing in this world. In fact, everything we experience for the first time is filtered through a mental filter of past experiences that help us form an understanding, or perspective really, of our new reality. This tool of interpretation happens instinctively, we are not overtly aware that we utilize it. Consequently, it is easy to expect others to have the same intuitive sense that we have. It is easy to get frustrated with people who don't seem to get it.

Social media as an expression of human community is fraught with intuitive misunderstandings. The reality is that early and middle age teens do not necessarily have the life experience (and at times the cognitive ability) to interpret the social messages they are experiencing or understand the rippling social consequences of their own postings. Even though it may feel that teens want their space, it is important for adults to be very aware of their kid's social footprint, being available to guide young people away from the piles of poo that are often present on social media postings.

The best way to accomplish this is to walk these social fields together, being ever available both online and off to provide an additional perspective of the manure mountains.

Blessings on the journey!

Brad

Facebook Not Making The Wealthy Wealthier

© Eknarin Maphichai | Dreamstime.com

As the third day of trading gets underway, Facebook continues to not make the wealthy wealthier. By the end of trading the first day, fingers were being pointed. Close out the second and people are estimating where the bottom will be. Mark Z has said the business is driven by a social agenda and not investor's wealth. So far he is proving his point.

Other than the obvious over-valuation of the IPO, there is a fundamental difference in how Facebook operates compared to other Internet giants like Google. Companies want to be able to advertise in a way that makes sense to them, project a product in a manner that causes people to spend their money on it. Google can do that by target advertisements linked to search engine queries. As GM pointed out last week, Facebook was not effective in doing that, consequently they were pulling the plug on site advertising. From a return on investment evaluation, it was not working.

The adult majority population continues to see the Internet as a tool best utilized for disseminating information. Social networking sites however are not built on that, they are built on relationships. It is not the information a company wants me to know that matters, it is what my circle of 'friends' are experiencing that matters.

Facebook is a giant human web of relationships about 1 billion strong. Advertisers want to envision that as a giant crowd of people all staring at a screen as if they were waiting to buy something. TV did that - everyone watching experienced the same thing at the same time. A digital web of relationships does not operate simultaneously, it operates in waves. What is important is decided by the community, by the network, by the relationships.

Someday, somebody, somewhere will figure out how to make a boatload of money riding the waves of human relationships. Oh wait, somebody did...we call if Facebook.

Let me know, did you the think Facebook IPO would soar or tank? Gut feeling or valuation?