'A' is for aware

When I was in Grade 9, there was a boy with whom I was hopelessly in love (the word 'love' here used in the very loose sense). One day, he came to school with a beeper and his 'cool factor' shot up about five notches. He suavely dished out cards with his contact number and the words 'beep me' scrawled underneath. When one of those sheets of gold landed in my hands, I thought I might die.

I begged my mother to buy me a beeper for weeks (cool by association), but she was having none of it. "Why don't you get a cellphone?" she proposed. The horror on my face meant that suggestion was never raised again. Why would I want a cellphone? Geez, I was 14, not 45! Which self-respecting teen walked around with a cellphone?

That was 14 years ago.

Today, which self-respecting teen doesn't walk around with a cellphone? Heads permanently bowed, fingers permanently crooked, today's teens are walking into a lot more lampposts as they block out the physical world.

I cannot recall a time when my brother, who is eight years my junior, did not have his thumbs glued to his cellphone. He received his first cellphone when he was 12 (I was 16 when I got my first one) and has had eight different models since. He's 20 now - that's 1.1 cellphones a year; I don't think I've had that many handsets in the past 14 years.

The fact that young people - or 'millennials', as they're fondly referred to - are so in tune with technology these days raises important and worrying questions about their level of media literacy. They're always connected, they're constantly engaged, but are they aware of the dangers? Do they know how to apply critical thinking to what they read on the Internet? Are they attentive to the personal image they portray each time they post something online? Do they know how to protect themselves and their personal information?

The Department of Education's National Curriculum Statement for Grades R to 9 outlines the learning outcomes for the Life Orientation module, which "guides and prepares learners for life and its possibilities. Life Orientation specifically equips learners for meaningful and successful living in a rapidly changing and transforming society."

But does it really? The module aims to develop skills, knowledge, values and attitudes that empower learners to make informed decisions and take appropriate action regarding health promotion, social, personal and physical development, and orientation to the world of work.

No mention is made of media literacy and technological skills. While the curriculum includes a separate technology module, the focus of this appears to be on applying technological skills and processes ethically and responsibly. Whether this covers media literacy is unclear.

For Ashley Jay, an educational psychologist specialising in children and adolescents, media literacy is the ability to analyse, evaluate and create messages in a wide variety of media genres. "The person will need to learn how to decipher something and decide whether or not it is relevant to their world and subjective experience."

She feels strongly that media literacy should be included in the National Curriculum, as, if students are unable to identify and gain meaning from the content presented to them, they will be unable to make informed personal decisions.

Today's teens are walking into a lot more lampposts.

A key focus area of media literacy education, Jay believes, should be on the student's ability to decipher what type of media they are consuming (editorial, advertorial, opinion piece, etc) as opposed to the medium (TV, radio, Internet) it is presented to the student in.

"Digital media needs to be a focal point, because anyone can be seen as an editor, advertiser or a public personality. This medium requires a specific skill set to differentiate fact from fiction and subjective opinion versus objective data."

The best way to teach this to students, in Jay's opinion, is to target them where they're at: social media. This could be in the form of a Facebook page or Twitter account, for example, which students could follow. "However, it needs to be done in such a way so as not to encourage laziness or distraction for students. For example, colloquial use of language used in texting or abbreviations cannot be transferred into scholastic performance," she says.

Life Orientation teacher Shalom Harris feels there are very few people who respect the subject. "Most people (some teachers included) regard the subject as a waste of time. If you introduce anything into this subject's curriculum, do not expect learners to pay attention to it beyond your lesson. I also feel it is important to note that most teenagers do not regard their teacher's knowledge of anything, especially the Internet, as authoritative; there is nothing a teacher can teach a teenager about the Internet, in their view."

That said, she still feels teaching media literacy to learners is important. "Teenagers do not live or think beyond their immediate situations, and what their peers think is very important to them. So, if my friends think getting drunk or high is cool, then publicly proving that I did is priority number one."

Harris is wary of engaging with students on social media platforms, saying all sorts of ethical issues come into play. What she believes will be more effective when it comes to teaching media literacy would be to get someone from outside the school to address the learners.

"The learners view this person as somebody from the real world who functions outside of school, and they seem to pay more attention to what is being said, especially if the person is in any way 'famous' or has been a victim of Internet crime."

The Internet is an unforgiving battlefield. From cyber bullying that leads to suicide, to kidnapping hoaxes, to paedophiles targeting children through their mothers, to Twitter faux pas, alongside cyber crime, Internet viruses, phishing, pornography and reports of Jon Bon Jovi and Morgan Freeman's deaths, it is vital that children are equipped with the skills and tools necessary to protect themselves. Parental controls are just the starting point. Parents need to have frank conversations with their children and ensure communication lines stay open at all times, should their children stumble on something they don't know how to deal with.

It seems, however, that attitudinal changes are needed first. Until then, social media might be the best place to really get through to the all-knowing teens of today. The key to online security is education. In the words of Aristotle: "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."