Instant messaging

Any adult living with children is familiar with the distinctive chime that accompanies the arrival of a new message in an instant messaging (IM) window. IM is to young people what e-mail is to their parents’ generation: the best way to communicate online (and, most importantly to kids, unlike e-mail IM conversations take place in real time).

MSN Messenger is the most popular stand-alone messaging program, although some Web sites, including Facebook, now offer IM technology as a feature so users can talk in real time.

Most young people (74%) use instant messaging on a regular basis. For kids, it is an incredible, free tool that lets them chat with friends, coordinate school projects and plan activities. It is also an integral part of their daily social lives: knowing all the jokes shared during the previous night’s IM discussion helps kids build and maintain their social relationships with peers at school. Beyond that, as young people use the “my contacts” feature to create lists and groups of friends to talk with they are developing skills for managing a social network or community of peers.

When younger youth start using instant messaging – usually as pre-teens – their social status is based on the number of friends they have in their contact list. Because of this, kids in this age group may be pressured to accept requests to be added as a contact – even from people they don’t know. As they gain proficiency in using IM, young people develop subtle techniques for gaining and maintaining status in their social group. For example, if they want to impress someone, they may wait for that person to contact them, instead of the reverse – and they may not rush to respond once contacted. Some kids set up two instant messaging accounts: one that is public and another that they share only with their closest friends.

Sometimes kids use other people’s accounts to disguise their identity in conversations with others – with or without permission. They don’t necessarily intend this maliciously: they may view it as a joke or as a role playing experiment (which can be a normal developmental activity for adolescents). But harassment and hurt feelings can easily result, so it’s a good idea to talk early on with your kids about these sorts of behaviours. Build empathy by asking them to consider: even if the person whose identity you have “borrowed” has given you permission, is this fair to the person you’re talking to? How would you feel if this happened to you?

Here are some tips to help you effectively manage instant messaging in the home:

• Set ground rules before giving your kids permission to use instant messaging. Tell them you will be saving their chat logs and address any privacy concerns they might have by agreeing to not read their logs unless you have serious concerns regarding their safety. To ensure chat logs are being saved when using MSN Messenger, enable the option “save history” in the settings.
• Ensure that your kids are not revealing too much personal information in their profiles, and, for the younger ones, make sure that they know everyone on their contact lists.
  
  
  To learn more about protecting personal information visit our Privacy section.
• Instant messaging is one of the main ways through which young people experience cyberbullying and sexual harassment online. Discuss the ethical questions surrounding online bullying behaviour and how the physical anonymity of the technology encourages kids to say and do things that they would never do face-to-face.
• Teach your kids that if they are being harassed through IM to stop the activity immediately and block the sender's messages – they should never reply to harassing messages. Make sure your IM program is automatically saving the IM chat logs so you have physical evidence of the harassment should you need to report it to the school or police.
  
  
  To learn more about online bullying visit our Cyberbullying section.
• MSN Messenger offers a video conferencing feature you can use if you or the person you are talking with has a webcam attached to the computer. This can be a wonderful way to stay in touch with relatives and friends who live far away but there are serious safety issues relating to webcams which need to be discussed. For general instant messaging, it is best to ensure the option “Allow Others to See That I Have a Webcam” is de-selected (this is found under the “My Webcam” settings).
  
  
  To learn more about webcam safety visit our Sexual risk and harm section.