Empowering the Young Media User

Both parents and educators can play a role in empowering media users from a young age. When parents decide to give their child a cellphone (generally when kids are preteens), they need to educate themselves about media trends for their child’s age group. Commonsense.org is a resource parents can use to stay on top of media trends. Without a firm understanding of how youth are using media and the evolving dangers, parents won’t be able to have productive conversations with their children. Parents need to be good role models with their own media use. It is also essential to have discussions on digital footprints, misinformation, fact-checking, and why waiting until they’re 13 years old to use social media is important. Making rules without discussions tends to result in young people breaking the rules whereas youth who understand the reasoning behind the rules tend to abide by them. There are instances where alerting youth to danger is the best a parent can do; gaming platform chats are being used to radicalize young people.

​

Educators can play a bigger role in teaching about bias, fake news, and critical thinking as well as reinforcing the dangers of misinformation and the need to fact-check. These skills are generally useful in multiple courses and can be integrated into the current curriculum. Social Studies is most impacted by media usage within the school setting. CIVIX, creators of Student Vote, have created CTRL-F which is a more in-depth digital literacy program than previously offered within the Student Vote curriculum. Commonsense.org also has a curriculum for educators. What it boils down to is parents and educators having open and honest discussions not just about how the youth should be using and consuming media, but also how media is produced and how to properly analyze it. Resources are available, the time investment is an essential and worthwhile investment in the child.