Social media can do a lot of good, but also poses risks

MOSES LAKE — As Darren Laur prepared to visit Moses Lake, he spent several weeks “creeping” the Moses Lake School District’s social media sites, watching kids and adults online to see just how they behave.

Most of what Laur — a retired Victoria, British Columbia, police sergeant and “white hat” hacker who goes by the name The White Hatter — said he saw was positive.

“I saw them pursuing their passions, educating themselves and finding groups,” Laur told parents at Moses Lake High School Tuesday night.

But he’s still a hacker, with an extensive website at thewhitehatter.ca, and so Laur said he also spent some time pretending to be a teenage girl, sending friend requests,

“A number accepted,” he said.

Laur was in Moses Lake to talk to middle school and high school students, as well as teachers and parents, about online safety and literacy.

His message is a simple one — while there are risks from being online, most kids are doing “super uber cool things online.” Parents need to be wary and cautious, and supervise their kids’ online time and activity, but they also need to stop being afraid of social media and the Internet as well.

“Kids are digital citizens, and we (adults) are digital immigrants,” Laur said. “They have acclimated because they were brought up (with technology). We were assimilated.”

In fact, Laur said some school kids have gotten so comfortable and competent with using technology they have hacked their school computer systems to change grades and even programed those computers to mine for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

“But (kids) are not necessarily digitally literate,” Laur continued. “What they are doing online can haunt them.”

Laur said the serious scientific research does not support claims that social media use provokes depression or other significant problems in more than a tiny minority of adolescents. Nor is the greatest threat from strangers who seek to do harm, which is “a small risk” and “becoming rarer.”

Rather, Laur said, the greatest threats are cyber bullying — what Laur calls “digital peer aggression” — identity theft, and the compilation of extensive “digital dossiers” that are beginning to be used by colleges and universities, employers, landlords and even banks to determine whom to admit, award scholarships, hire, rent or lend to.

Because anything posted online is permanent — even with apps like Snapchat — all of it is for sale, and nothing is ever private, he explained.

“Ninety-two percent of employers look online (when they receive job applications),” Laur said. “That’s changed the equation for kids.”

Laur’s advice is simple. Parents need to monitor their kids’ internet and social media access, limiting access times, and keeping phones and other devices out of bedrooms and away from the dinner table. And parents also need to be careful about what they post online about their own kids.

“Family values and ethics carry over into the digital world,” he said.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.