Citizenship on the Web

 Digital Citizenship is becoming more and more important in today's growing technological society.  Today we have to be careful of what we use, how we use it, and when we are using it.  Digital citizenship to me is about how we represent ourselves on any kind of social media.  In my personal and profession life, the way that I conduct myself is in a way that is in my mind safe for all to see.  The way that we conduct our everyday and every post on social media norms, that is what the major citizenship ways.  We should always take into consideration what is appropriate, even though some people may not think it is offense someone else may.  We have to be careful in all aspects of the digital  age of offending people, as we grow online we must look at more than one aspect of an issue before posting it somewhere.  For me if I want to post something that may be on a controversial issue I will be sure to have some kind of facts to back up my claim, like wise if I post something that I would even remotely consider inappropriate I will not post it.  For me no matter what kind of life we are looking at think about the overall idea about what you are posting before you do post it, remember that almost anyone can see it if they are looking for it.  Be smart about it, digital citizenship is a big thing that more and more people are becoming aware of. Digital citizenship is much more than we sometimes think it can be, this article talks about the digital citizenship and different aspects of it.

I have been hurt by something that was shared on the internet once.  It was almost shocking that someone that I knew and thought of as a personal friend would be so inconsiderate of people around them and post something that could offend people a lot bigger than me.  As part of digital citizenship, taking into consideration what others having feelings for is a big part that many people do not think of.  Being hurt and hurting someone via sharing something is sometimes easier than anticipated due to the fact that we sometimes share things without any real thought to what we are sharing.  Sometimes we use social media as an outlet for our anger and frustration because we do not want to make direct confrontation with the actual issues in our lives. I know I have tried to make a general frustration outlet on social media, and hurt someone by doing that.  Instead of just talking to them I made things worse by sharing my feelings with the general public, for all to see.  By avoiding direct action with that person I made things harder to explain. My actions were my own and if I could I would go back and just be up front with that person.  Digital citizenship also incorporates a big part of this, sharing mindlessly and hurtfully.

Adults I think are sometimes too apprehensive about the internet, and for the most part they have every right to be that way. Many things can happen on the internet that parents and adults have no control over.  It can be scary, but also with out risk there is no accomplishment. With adults trying to limit kids interaction on the internet is also limiting their knowledge and creativity they can be learning.  Using the internet is now a great source to learn to do just about anything, you can also share, post, talk about, read, or watch anything.  By having adults with fears and concerns it hurts the kids to be a big part of the participatory culture.  We live in a time where we interact with each other more over any digital device than any face to face connection.  We need to let kids adventure and seek the far reaches of the internet to be successful and creative in their own minds.  There can be many dangers on the internet, but if we let all our fears get in the way, then we are almost hurting our kids even more.  Digital citizenship is part of growing up now, and by preventing that is holding kids back from a more eventful and expressive future.