Even the youngest among us, addicted to technology, need to learn to be responsible digital citizens.
Today's students have never known a world without the internet; they can hardly remember life before social media, Google, or YouTube. Although many of today's adults may wax nostalgic about the past days of sifting through card catalogs or dusting off the family set of outdated encyclopedias to find information for a paper, it is the responsibility of educators and parents to look to the future, to train today's youth to be responsible digital citizens. Being a responsible digital citizen requires the user to be shrewd, ethical, and engaged.
SHREWD
One of the most important qualities of a responsible digital citizen is using good judgment. Digital citizens must exercise judgment to determine authenticity of information, to keep private personal information, to prevent themselves from being exploited. When a user is naive and fails to exercise shrewd judgment, he may believe and cite false information, may expose personal private details that may deter potential colleges or employers, and may fall victim to the host of scams that prey on uneducated users.
ETHICAL
In addition to exercising good judgment, a digital citizen must act ethically at all times. Acting ethically includes honoring copyright laws, giving credit to the owners of media or ideas, only posting information that is known to be true and factual. An ethical digital citizen is civil toward other users, and while he may disagree with another's idea, he treats others online with the same respect and manners that he would give to someone he was meeting face-to-face.
ENGAGED
Life does not begin and end in front of a computer screen. The well-rounded, responsible digital citizen will use technology as a tool to spread ideas that can benefit humanity and the common good, ideas that can mobilize others to identify problems within our communities and to work to solve those problems. The digital citizen is able to achieve balance in life, unplugging from time to time to engage with the world, to bring the civic-mindedness acquired through technology into the community. Ultimately, the engaged digital citizen works to make the world a better place, and technology is just one of his many tools to do so.
The Knight Foundation works to create engaged digital citizens.
What do you feel is the most important quality in a digital citizen?
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