National Post (National Edition)
TEEN GIRLS’ VIRTUAL REALITIES
I DON’T WANT RANDOM PEOPLE I DON’T KNOW FOLLOWING ME OR LOOKING AT MY PICTURES ... IT’S CREEPY
Through a relationship with Central Toronto Academy, a 100-year-old inner city high school, the National Post has embarked on a year-long conversation with Canadian teens to explore how digital life is affecting them. Last October, we published Boys Online, which explored the issue of sex and cyberspace from the less-explored perspective of teenaged boys. With a verdict about to come down in the Amanda Todd case, we turned to teen girls to find out how they are navigating the online world. We asked them about the lessons from Amanda and Rehtaeh Parsons, about their own experiences online, and how aware they are of dangers. Read on:
KIURA F., AGE 15
When the topic of online predators and cyberbullying is discussed during a Grade 10 English class at Central Toronto, one female student falls asleep; you get the impression they’ve heard it all too many times before.
The students were asked to write about their experiences with social media. Like teenagers throughout time, they pride themselves on being too smart to fall prey.
“A lot of people on the Internet catfish, but it would be really hard to catfish me, because whether it’s Instagram or Snapchat, my accounts are private and if they do find a way to message me, I’d dismiss them or block them if I don’t know who they are,” wrote Kiura F., 15.
“I don’t want random people I don’t know following me or looking at my pictures, because it’s creepy and weird,” she added.
ANDREA A., AGE 15
Andrea A., also 15, wrote that she’d never flash a webcam or send nudes. “If a guy really liked you, why would he be asking for that type of stuff anyway? Amanda made a mistake that could’ve happened to anybody, but because of what happened to her, I know — and hopefully many others know — that what happened to Amanda could happen to any of us.”
MICHAU S., AGE 15
Michau S., 15, wrote: “Teenagers are underestimated and people think we’re incompetent, but that’s not true. Adults are scared of social media because they might not understand how it works, so that scares them. But we grew up on it. It’s only to parents that it’s a new technology.”
BECKY L., AGE 14
“Random people that you don’t really know will ask you to send nudes, and all the time you get random people trying to talk to you,” said Becky L., 14 (her name has been changed), who attends another high school in Toronto.
“This guy on his hockey team gets a lot of nudes and what he does with them is, he takes screen shots and then he sells these pictures to his friends,” Becky added. “Girls think they’re safe, they trust this guy, but they don’t realize what’s happening.”
Becky knows who Amanda Todd is, but didn’t know Rehtaeh Parsons, and says she is careful about what she posts, who she “friends” and what sort of images she shares. But she also says that she’s on her phone “24/7” and that girls in her school call each other “slut” and “whore” and that Amanda Todd’s tragedy could easily happen again.
“We talked about Amanda in Grade 7 and 8, but something wild would have to happen for us to talk about her again,” Becky said. “My parents are concerned, but they’re not that concerned, and most parents don’t check into what their kids are posting online.”