Thanks for writing back! Your story inspired me to write about my struggle with tech….
I should probably spend some more time looking at the services Bark offers before I bring this up, but here’s what I see at my high school:
Kids are experts at dodging adults. They use each others phones and laptops and are shapeshifters, constantly creating new usernames and identities on different devices.
Last Friday, I found a sticky note in my classroom that said (sic) “Plz log in to Alex’s phone and delete insta acct HKYGRL24 and all chat convos btwn him and userxxxx”
I figured out who it was from, but basically, a girl had created a new account from a friend’s phone and then was texting with another boy from this phone.
My students send naked pics to each other all the time. They do it from each others’ phones as a joke. To them it’s funny and harmless. Then they are experts at deleting and wiping their phones so that adults can’t find them. You probably could find them, but our local school resource officer isn’t exactly a super sleuth.
It’s these things as much as what you wrote in your article that makes me hesitate to get my daughter a laptop.
I just feel like the longer I hold out, the more mature she will be and the better able she will be to navigate these situations on her own.
Am I crazy?!?
