Social media has become the Great Evil for many adults who have or work with teenagers and pre-adolescents. It is ubiquitous, potentially dangerous and constantly changing. It can cause great problems for individuals and groups, and schools are ill-equipped to deal with many of the issues that surround its use because most social media sites and applications are not (supposed to be) used within the school setting.

Recently, the high school that my students feed in to held a workshop for parents and kids on social media. It was billed as a way to help students navigate their online and offline reputations – or more to the point, to help parents help their children navigate them. A couple of my students and their parents went to the session, and one of the kids wrote about it in her Daily Pages (a writing exercise we do each morning to get out some of the junk on our brains).

She was less than enthused about it. I have no idea how the presentation went objectively (or subjectively from my perspective, more accurately), as I didn’t attend; for this student, however, it focused exclusively on the negative and she came out of it frustrated and annoyed.

And this, more than the content of the presentation itself, worries me. There are many dangers to social media; I, who have taught grade six and seven for over ten years, am fully aware of this. I have discussed the permanence of images shared online and via text, the importance of carefully constructing your digital footprint, the danger of certain sites such as ask.fm and omegle.com. I have had students emotionally destroyed by rumours spread by group chats or pictures that are sent from phone to phone in the blink of an eye. There are absolutely dangers to social media (and I include the various apps that allow for group social interaction in this).

There are some pretty incredible aspects of social media, however. On my professional Twitter account, I am connected to a fabulous and innovative group of educators that extend beyond my school, my district, and even my province and country. I am able to turn to them for advice or suggestions; I have a personal learning community (PLC) that expands my knowledge and engages me in creativity. On Facebook, I connect to friends and family who live far away, and am able to be a part of their daily (or weekly) lives in a way that would be impossible without social media. My father has recently learned how to use iMessage on his iPad. He can watch videos of his newborn grandson who lives across the country, and he can text me while I am on the go to find out if I want to come over for dinner.

Social media has all sorts of benefits, even as it has all sorts of drawbacks. The challenge with our students and our children is helping them to understand the challenges that come with any sort of communication. (What’s with this “letter” thing?! You put your words down on paper? ANYONE could read them – and at any time! I don’t understand why you can’t just wait until they come to town and speak to them in person. This new technology is dangerous – what if your lord read what you wrote?)

Through teaching our children to be critical thinkers, teaching them to consider what they are doing and what the potential implications of any action (online or off), we can help them to understand the impact that social media can have on their life. We can teach them to evaluate danger (do you know this person in real life? What does it mean if you don’t? What does it mean if the people you’re talking to are completely anonymous?) and make decisions that protect themselves to the best of their ability.

The thing is, no matter how hard we try to keep them away from it, our children are going to find their own ways to access whichever social media they want. They can borrow a friend’s phone, go to the library, sneak on at school when the teacher’s not paying attention. If they’re going to access it anyway, isn’t it so much better to have it under our eyes and with our full knowledge?

We need to talk to our children about the social media they use. We need to talk to them about the potential consequences of the things they do and say and post online. Mostly, however, we need to talk to them about how to be a digital citizen, so that we can educate them to make safe, sane and intelligent choices online.

It’s no different than any other aspect of their lives. Just talk.

Edit: Chris Wejr, an incredible blogger and educator who I follow on Twitter, had this to say about social media.