‘Think B4 U Click’: an educational online safety resource for the Irish CSPE curriculum

Abstract

Young people in Ireland, like their counterparts across Europe, are enthusiastic social networkers. EU Kids Online found that in 2010 82% of children in Ireland, aged 13-16, had a social networking (SNS) profile (O’Neill, Grehan, & Ólafsson, 2011). Social networking gives young people extraordinary opportunities to communicate with peers, share information and explore new friendships, in the relative security of an online community created through a social networking platform. Much concern has been expressed about young people's apparent lack of concern about privacy issues (Boyd & Marwick, 2011) and about the dangers they may be exposed to by failing to keep their SNS profiles restricted to friends or personal acquaintances. Education has been slow to address this issue in part due to the reluctance of schools to allow social networking on school networks and as well as more traditional resistance to intervene in youth cultures outside the normal curriculum.