Acquire digital literacy, stay safe on social media: Facebook

With the advancement of technology, the way of communication has changed. Technology has also altered the way of learning. As a result, the importance of learning digital literacy, also known as virtual learning and e-learning are increasing day by day. Because without proper use and understanding of technology, the digital world can be violent and even dangerous.Digital learning of teenagers and young people can play a vital role in this case.

To help kids and young people better use the internet in critical and thoughtful way, Facebook has a feature called ‘Digital Literacy Library’. The feature was developed by partnership with the Youth and Media team at the Berkman Klein Center for internet & society at Harvard University. It includes lessons and videos that can be downloaded for free. Students can use these in the classroom, in after school programs or at home. This feature aimed to educate kids and teens by dividing 3 aged groups (11-18, 13-18, and 15-18) and address topics like privacy, reputation, identity exploration, security, safety, wellbeing and more.

In the privacy and reputation section, participants can explore their individual sense of privacy and impact on their own lives by keeping individual’s information private. Participants can consider how publicly available online information helps form others’ opinions about them. By this section participants learn how to maintain privacy while share information and communicate with others in online. It also educate a participants about the way to customize privacy settings on social media.

In online, users can share three types of information. From the Identity Exploration section of Digital Literacy Library, participants can identify personal information which can be manageable and which are not. They can judge implications of the information they put online on their relationship with family, friends and authority figures especially with teachers and employers. By learning the lesson of this section, they successfully manage online activities of their personal profile.

For promoting understanding among peers and realizing the perspective of others,positive behavior lesson can play an important role among teens. It contain two sections, healthy relationship online and respect and boundaries.

In the security section, participants can learn how to keep their Facebook account secure. It also taught principles of strong password design, the potential problems of password sharing, how to keep their passwords safe and how to take steps to prevent unauthorized access to their accounts. They also learn about the benefits and risks of usingpublic Wi-Fi networks and tools to identify and remove spammy content.

Community engagement give participants idea about how social networks can be leveraged to advocate, raise awareness and impact change. By learning advocacy and making change, building activist network, raising awareness through media, hashtags and pop imagination they will learn how to develop an initial plan for their own advocacy campaign.

This digital literacy library was created from more than 10 years of academic research. It covers everything from having healthy relationships online to recognizing phishing scams.