We are in the middle of a new lockdown and most children and young people have weeks of remote and online learning ahead of them. As such, their use of connected devices will surge once again. It makes next month's Safer Internet Day a vital date in the education calendar (see page 265). In fact, it couldn't be more important.
This year, the day focuses on knowing just what we can trust when online. This theme will resonate with many of you in an era where misinformation online – and in particular on social media – is rife and is regularly affecting your work.
The COVID-19 pandemic appears to have galvanised conspiracy theorists and online trolls even more, and I have heard alarming tales of health professionals who promote public health messages finding themselves under attack on social media – regardless of their area of specialisation.
For example, a harmless tweet on a successful school-based immunisation campaign can easily become the target of relentless pandemic deniers and the dangerous anti-vaccine movements. While we can all ignore the occasional troll, the sheer volume and relentless nature of some of these attacks would shake anyone. When the same accusations and conspiracy theories spill into real life and are echoed by increasing numbers of concerned parents and young people, it can make disseminating public health messages extremely difficult.
There has been a shift in perceptions for which I blame social media. While health professionals were being applauded for their work in spring and summer of last year, they are now accused of being part of the problem, of lying and of colluding with the government. If we are to go by what we see online, trust in health services may well be hitting an all-time low.
Workload has hugely increased for school nurses who need to respond to the dramatic rise in safeguarding and mental health issues facing children, young people and families as a result of the pandemic and successive lockdowns. Keeping resilient in the face of a pandemic is difficult enough, but a combination of stress, fatigue and distrust from service users makes me fear that we are heading for disaster.
Last month, the government claimed that it is leading a new age of accountability for social media with its Online Harms legislation, but it will not do much to stop the spread of misinformation, which has fast become one of the biggest threats to our young people and society as a whole. The way social media functions means that we can all fall victim – we can find ourselves halfway down the rabbit hole before we even realise that this has happened. Many young people – and adults for that matter – never even achieve this realisation…
I hope that the new RSHE curriculum will prepare children and young people for the ugly reality that the world of social media has become. In fact, I believe that many adults would benefit from similar training. According to Menczer and Hills (2020), understanding our cognitive biases and how algorithms and bots exploit them allows us to better guard against manipulation. This is a whole new area of education and we cannot waste time before addressing it. Stay strong and stay safe.