YEARS 7 AND 8 CYBERSAFETY TALK

When we heard that another person was going to lecture us about cybersafety, we were disappointed. We were all thinking about how it was going to be boring, like a Year 2 lecture. “Hey, being online is bad. The end”. Our first few thoughts were “This is going to be really boring. He is just going to tell us the same thing we've all heard before: ‘social media is bad’ and ‘you shouldn't be on it, especially if you are under 13'." But really, Paul Litherland, WA's Australian of the Year finalist who runs Surf Online Safe, was there to tell us about how unprotected we really are on social media using his past experience as a WA Police Officer in the Technology Crime Investigation Unit. 

A few days before the presentation, Paul went online and tried to find as many of us from Years 7 and 8 as he could from popular social media platforms. He made us aware how easy it was to find out our personal information from these platforms and made us aware of how unprotected we are on social media. 

Paul also told us that ever since a couple of years ago, the rates of underage people having accounts on social media have gone up dramatically. He also shared real-life stories with us that made us realise the dangers of cyberbullying and was not afraid to share information with us. That made it an amazing awareness-raising experience.

Parents will have the opportunity to hear Paul speak about cybersafety and teenagers' use of social media on Thursday 11 August (Week 4, Term 3) from 7:00pm in the RNDM Theatre. This event is free for all Sacred Heart families to attend.

Hannah Jackson and Lauren Southgate 

Year 7 Barlow and Year 7 Carden