Digital safety & wellness

If you open yourself to the benefits and opportunities of the internet, you expose yourself to its risks and dangers at the same time. It is therefore important to put into place well-considered educational strategies which offer students – especially at school level – guidance on possible risks. In recent years, there has been a growing focus on the broader concept of digital wellness or digital wellbeing (including mobile wellness or mobile wellbeing), which incorporates components of both physical and mental health. Some ministries and departments of education are now focusing on teaching students not only how to protect themselves, but how to have a positive influence on the people and the environment around them when engaging in online interactions.

Digital safety

Traditionally, the greatest risks have been seen as:

• • cyberbullying, which, depending on how it is defined, is regularly found by researchers to affect large numbers of young people
  • cyberpredation, which, although a serious crime, affects a relatively small proportion of youth
  • exposure to inappropriate material, which, depending on what is considered to be inappropriate, is found to affect varying numbers of young people

Some risks are found where conversations are not publicly viewable, such as in interactive social media channels and apps (notably through chat & messaging). Other risks are found in verbal bullying or in the wide dissemination of embarrassing or hurtful multimedia material on social networking or social sharing platforms. Recently there has been an increase in bullying on gaming platforms. Online displays of self-harm on social platforms and apps, and even self-cyberbullying, are of considerable concern. Many educational resources address the issue of bullying (see below).

Adults may of course also be affected by bullying, which is often referred to as trolling when it occurs on public platforms. Such trolling disproportionately affects women and minorities (such as sexual minorities). Common advice on handling trolling includes “don’t feed the trolls” as well as blocking and reporting of perpetrators.

The rise of generative AI has complicated safety issues, making it relatively easy to create deepfakes (i.e., images or, more often, videos manipulated by AI). Issues include the creation of fake sexual imagery for the purposes of exploitation or extorsion, as flagged up the the Australian eSafety Commissioner.

Digital privacy

It has become clear that it’s equally important to educate youth to safeguard their privacy online and to be aware that material they post to social networking or social sharing sites may leave a permanent data trail or digital footprint (sometimes also called a digital shadow). It’s important to advise young people – and indeed adults – to use strong passwords and multi-factor authentication, to tighten up privacy settings on social networking sites, to beware of increasingly sophisticated phishing scams, and to avoid giving out personal data unnecessarily. This will help safeguard them from identity theft, as well as offering some protection from cyberbullying and cyberpredation.

Cybersecurity is becoming a major issue at governmental, insitutional, corporate and personal levels. While there are limits to how much individuals can protect themselves, especially given the large-scale institutional and corporate data breaches of recent years, the measures outlined above may be of some help.

Digital reputation

As more and more companies and colleges conduct internet searches on potential candidates, and as more and more people check out online data about individuals they’re doing business with or interacting with on a social or personal level, it’s becoming increasingly important for all of us to manage our digital reputations. It’s vital to remind young people that inappropriate status updates or photos may negatively impact job and life opportunities far into the future while, conversely, evidence of engaged use of web 2.0 or social media tools, including rich PLNs, creative PLEs, or polished e-portfolios, can help create a positive impression of skills and abilities.

This certainly affects adults too: people in public-facing roles, from politicians to doctors to teachers, should assume that electors, patients and students (and students’ parents) are all Googling them!

Digital & mobile wellness (or wellbeing)

There is an increasing level of concern about the impact of continuous connectivity on physical and mental health, with issues including vision problems, back and neck pain, disturbed sleep cycles, the apparent rise of attention disorders and even internet addiction, and anxiety and stress. Developing attentional literacy and other related digital literacies may offer some help. Amongst other things, considering when, where and why to switch off digital devices is important for everyone, young or old.

A positive digital influence

Traditionally, education about digital safety has focused on protecting individuals from online dangers and risks, but nowadays discussions also focus on how students might be encouraged to proactively develop a positive presence or influence online, as seen notably in the Singaporean Ministry of Education’s Cyber Wellness principles and the Australian eSafety Commissioner’s Respect principles.

Educational resources

Fortunately, many governments and other organisations have produced valuable educational materials for a variety of age groups and contexts. Most of these deal primarily with issues of digital safety and digital privacy. The following list contains some useful resources:

• • • 23 Great Lesson Plans for Internet Safety (Common Sense Education, USA)
    • Australian Cyber Security Centre (Australian Signals Directorate, Australian Govt)
    • Be Internet Awesome [including Interland game] (Google, USA)
    • Better Internet for Kids (European Schoolnet, EU)
    • Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Education (National Crime Agency, UK)
    • Choose Privacy Week Video (20K)
    • Classroom Resources [index] (eSafety Commissioner, Australia)
    • Clean Up Your Digital Footprint (A Platform for Good)
    • Cyberbullying Research Center (USA)
    • Dealing with Digital Distraction in the Classroom (Common Sense Education, USA)
    • Digital Citizenship Curriculum (Common Sense Education, USA)
    • Digital Compass (Common Sense, USA)
    • Digital Passport (Common Sense Education, USA)
    • Digital Tattoo (University of British Columbia, Canada)
    • eSafety Commissioner (Australia)
    • eSafety Commissioner [ClickView] (Australia)
    • eSafety Commissioner [Facebook] (Australia)
    • eSafety Commissioner [Twitter/X] (Australia)
    • eSafety Office [Vimeo] (eSafety Commissioner, Australia)
    • eSafety Parents (eSafety Commissioner, Australia)
    • eSafety Toolkit for Schools (eSafety Commissioner, Australia)
    • Generative AI – Position Statement (eSafety Commissioner, Australia)
    • Get Safe Online (UK)
    • Guidelines on Physical Activity, Sedentary Behaviour and Sleep for Children under 5 Years of Age (WHO)
    • How to Handle the Violent Videos at Your Kid’s Fingertips (Common Sense Media, USA)
    • Keep Your Students (and Yourself) Safe on Social Media: A Checklist [infographic] (Common Sense Education, USA)
    • Kids’ Pledge (SafeKids.com, USA)
    • NetSmartzKids (National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, USA)
    • News & Media Literacy Resource Center (Common Sense Education, USA)
    • Parenting, Media, and Everything in Between [on cyberbullying] (Common Sense Media, USA)
    • Physical Activity and Exercise Guidelines for All Australians (Dept of Health & Aged Care, Australia)
    • Practising Cyber Wellness (Ministry of Education, Singapore)
    • Prepare [for schools] (eSafety Commissioner, Australia)
    • Schools Cyber Security Challenges (Grok Academy, Australia)
    • Social Media TestDrive (Cornell University, USA)
    • Social Media and Youth Mental Health (The US Surgeon General’s Advisory, USA)
    • That’s Not Cool (FVPF, Ad Council & OVW, USA)
    • ThinkUKnowAUS [YouTube] (ThinkUKnow.org.au, Australia)
    • What is Doxxing (Comparitech, UK)
    • Where We Stand: Screen Time (American Academy of Pediatrics, USA)
    • Young and eSafe (eSafety Commissioner, Australia)

More references on this topic are available on the Publications on Digital Learning page.

Last update: February 2024.