Hey, Sarah!

Digital Citizenship.
Yep, it's like a whole other world on that little computer. Take a close look at your computer right now, as you read this. Is it a desktop? A laptop? Is it a big fancy-pants Macbook Air? Or is it a tiny little E-Machines laptop that takes a quarter of a century to load one page?
No matter what it is, there's a whole other UNIVERSE on that computer. You can pretend you're somebody else in that universe. You can hide from people in that universe. You can stalk people in that universe. You can do pretty much ANYTHING in that universe!
Not that I'm accusing you of blackmail or scamming or stalking or whatever. I'm just saying that doing any of those things, and more, is easy if you know how. And if you're rotten enough to actually do that. To all those bad guys out there, you're sick. Stop it! Oh, why would you do such a thing?
Anyway, I'm saying all of this because we did a Digital Citizenship workshop today at Enrich. It's basically like an Internet safety workshop. Honestly, I've had at least three or four of those this year, so I know the deal. Don't share personal information about yourself or you could get attacked by creepy guys! Yes, it's all very well saying that, but who's actually going to listen? I bet all the creepy guys got told the exact same thing when they were at school, and look where that's got them. The same goes for people that have gotten attacked or bullied or abused or scammed or whatever. Sometimes they don't even do that many risky things. You could go onto Facebook right now, if you have one, and post a sweet selfie you took. No harm in that, right? Right. But just remember, there are some sick, sick people out there and they are watching you. I've probably got one watching me right now, and so have you. So if you happened to be very pretty or very handsome, or even if you're an ugly old toad and the picture just made you look that way, you have no idea where that photo could end up. Go on, think of one of your friends. Actually, I'll do that. Let's say I had a friend called Lily. (I don't, by the way, this is just an example). So I took a BEEEYYOOOTEEFUL selfie, and Lily was my friend on Facebook. (Again, just an example - I don't have a Facebook, authorities, I promise). So I sent this lovely picture to Lily. She thinks it's pretty too, so she sends it somebody else, who sends it to somebody else, and somehow it winds up in the hands of somebody else, who is not very nice. The person who is not very nice could either: also think that photo is beautiful and track me down, and start stalking me and hurt me emotionally, or they could share it to EVERYBODY THEY KNOW. So somehow, that pretty selfie went from being a cute pic of yourself that you sent to your friend, to being a very, very public photo that's all over the Internet and people are suddenly recognizing you on the street. That's a little bit like what happened to a girl called Sarah who was in a video we watched. She had a REALLY public Facebook page, and then she moved to a new town, a new school, and heaps of people had seen photos of her that may or may not have been attractive or simply just really pretty, and then she's walking around town with her friends and EVERYBODY is saying hi to her. A boy from school as they walk out the gates, who she has never seen before. "Hi Sarah!" She and her friends just giggle because he happened to be very cute. But then it gets more serious, and by that I mean more creepy. Like, "Hey, dude, look! That girl in the pink top! That's the girl I wad telling you about!" Until finally it reaches a maximum where she and her friends are buying tickets for the movies and the guy selling tickets, who is a middle-aged man with a bald head and glasses, says, "Hey Sarah. What colour underwear today?"
OH MY GOSH HOW CREEPY!!
Now I am certainly not saying that this is going to happen to you. NO, of course not! I'm just saying that it COULD. Now, the Internet is wonderful. Incredible thing. Very useful. I'm just saying, you have power, use it wisely...