SOCIAL NETWORKING Topic of Discussion at a Family Dinner (Oct.18th)

Sunday we had all gotten together to eat lunch at my mom's house. All meaning there is about twenty of us. We were sitting around my mom's computer looking at a friend of ours obituary. He passed away from Cancer last Wednesday night. He and his family lived in Arizona so we were online reading about him from the tribute his daughter had written two hours before he passed away.
My thirty-seven (youngest) year old sister says these social networking sites need to be gotten rid of! Then of course my sister-in-law and a friend chimed in, "yes I agree." Then they all got into discussing about how you can say whatever you want to whom ever you want and there is never face to face conversations and people can and do get mad over what is written. I listened to them for what seemed like hours, but it was only ten minutes. I kind of let them wind down and then I threw in the statement of I believe certain social networking sites will come and go, but instead of removing everything maybe we should just take the time and teach people how and why to use them. They all kind of looked at me. LIKE REALLY? I told them you all just spent ten minutes complaining about the exact kind of benefit you had five minutes before that in going to the Caringbridge Site to read about our friend. I reminded them that too is a form of social networking. It is just like when you have a one year old and the kind of thinking that goes with child proofing the house. My husband and I chose not to child proof our home we taught our children at very young age what was touchable and what was pretty, what could be played with and what should be left alone. My husband was in the Navy and we traveled to other houses a lot we never worried about our children breaking anything because they had been taught. Also nobody had to worry that we were coming and their home wasn't childproof because our children ALMOST all of the time knew how to act. Believe me they were and are not perfect, but we could take them anywhere. I did childcare for ten years and in ten years I only had one candle broke. The children were taught what they could play with and what was to be left alone. It is the same philosophy just as Denise stated last Wednesday night in class. We have to teach the social networking and model it so children and others know how to use it. Is there still going to be some problems? Of course there is, but if we always sit back and observe and never bother to teach explain then we're always going to get what we've always gotten. They all looked at me still, like you are not really serious are you? I told them I have not personally researched it but I would guess if you put lessons and assignments on i-pods just in the high school setting you would have a better success rate at them being looked at and used to benefit them as students. I told them if you teach it and are involved in what they are doing they tend to choose different wordage. Is the garbage still going to go on, of course because we are all human. After all there was still stuff being said that shouldn't have when there were party lines on phones years ago. Really showing how old I am!!! Teach social networking and use it often and children will see a whole different side then just being able to get on and start saying whatever they want how they want.
Have a good week!