Sometimes you just need to know when to zip your lip. Too much honesty got an internet safety presenter in hot water when he characterized some of the MySpace photos of actual attendees as "slutty". People left the room in tears and now this law enforcement officer in Colorado is in trouble.
Last week I had the honor of visiting with a wonderful group of young people in Camden, NJ through the efforts of Hopeworks. This fine organization endeavors to keep kids in school and provide low-income youths with educational mentoring and technical training. They have created the first-ever street map for Camden and using technology like GIS can create custom maps depicting tree canopies in the city, crime incidents and other useful services for their fellow citizens.
As part of our morning together, I gave them a spiel on keeping their online lives honest but not damaging to their burgeoning reputations. You might think, as I did, that perhaps the lives of these young adults is so difficult, they might not really care about whether or not their MySpace page uses rough language or if their photos online give off a "gangsta" image, but they do. We discussed the issues of applying for jobs or scholarships or just meeting new friends who will go online to learn more about them. Does their online world accurately reflect who they are or who they want to be? So it was helpful to put a few of their actual MySpace pages up on the projected screen for examples. Of course, we asked permission first.
You won't be surprised that there was a lot of profanity, sometimes just in their screennames. Other pages showed photos of kids throwing gang signs. And some of their "top friends" were clearly strangers, including one bikini-clad girl whose screen name was her LA-area code phone number.
I just let the kids point out to each other what someone in a hiring position might conclude as a result of what they show online. I didn't judge (how could I possibly judge these kids? How could I even hope to understand what their lives are like?). I prefer to let people draw their own conclusions with some real world examples of how misleading online information has impacted offline lives.
I've since heard from one of the Hopeworks counselors that some of the kids are working on their MySpace pages to address the issues we discussed. That's ideal. Drop a little information into a pond and watch the results ripple out to the wider group!