5 Things You Should Know About Young People & The Internet
Got 11–18s in your home, church or youth group? Here’s 5 things you should know about the young people and the internet:
1. Internet is more important than daylight
A survey of nearly 2,500 young people (18–24 yrs) in the UK found that more of them chose the internet as one of life’s essentials than daylight. Young people depend on the internet: for information, for friendship, for self-expression, for entertainment, and even for job opportunities.
Miracle teenager survives for almost six hours with no wi-fi
2. Everyone has Facebook but nobody uses it
About 97% of people who have any kind of social media account have a Facebook account. But don’t be fooled into thinking that they all use it. Facebook has become a mostly middle-aged place to hang out online. Your teenagers are unlikely to spend much time there, if at all. Most of them won’t even bother having a Twitter account.
My non-scientific research among teens suggests that Snapchat and Instagram are the current favourites. Plenty of them also use WhatsApp, Kik, Musical.ly, YouTube, Oovoo and a host of other smaller sites.
3. Stranger danger
For me it was ‘Never take sweets from strangers’. For today’s teens it’s ‘Don’t become friends with strangers online’. Teenagers have had plenty of internet safety lessons. They know what the dangers are, even if sometimes they don’t notice themselves being swept up into them.
Don’t try to teach your teens things that they know better than you do.
Do make sure they know that they can talk to you about online problems and that you’ll listen and help, if you can. Remember, people are still people, even online. You might not understand the technology, but you’ve still had more experience of dealing with people.
Do point them to really good sources of help: ChildLine is excellent and I also recomment the H2B Safety Centre online.
NB: It IS possible to get photos and stories removed from social media sites, or buried so that they become inaccessible. No one’s life should be ruined just because something has been posted that shouldn’t have been.
4. Community and communication
Being a teenager is a weird and scary thing. A lot of teenagers feel isolated and it’s easy to believe that you’re the only one going through the changes and experiences of adolescence. The internet is a brilliant way of finding other people who are like you! Conversations that are awkward face to face can be much easier on screen.
The computer is just a tool, the people are still the people.
This is particularly true for teenagers who are the only Christian in their class, or even their school. And for those who are the only teenager in their church.
Instead of worrying that your teen is spending so much time on the computer, be grateful that he or she has found people they want to spend time with, people they can talk to, people they can identify with. The computer is just a tool, the people are still people.
5. The Gospel is Online
There are some AMAZING Christian websites, apps and resources for teenagers. Here’s just a few to check out:
The Road/The Bridge: articles and videos about all kinds of issues
More Precious: especially for teenage girls
Conversation starters: short films designed to get people talking
And of course, there are all the Online Pastor resources from Lichfield Diocese. The Well is particularly aimed at teenagers.
Follow OP_thewell on Instagram and Snapchat and find out more at onlinepastor.org
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Ros Clarke is a Christian teacher, speaker and writer. Since May 2015, she has been employed by the Diocese of Lichfield as the first Online Pastor in the Church of England.
