Tweens and Texting: Key Findings from the FCC Forum with Glee's Jane Lynch Today

Today we had the opportunity to attend the FCC's forum, "Generation Mobile", on tweens and texting at McKinley Tech High School in Washington, DC. This event was headline by Glee star Jane Lynch who is also the spokesperson for LG's new Text Ed campaign to educate parents and kids about texting responsibly. We tweeted extensively during the day - you can view our entire transcript on our Twitter page here (look for our tweets with the #genmobile hashtag).

We met some old friends (Rosalind Wiseman) and some new ones (SafetyWeb's Michael Clark (they offer a kind of reputation monitor for kids) and Marsali Hancock from the Internet Keep Safe Coalition (an international non-profit)).

Some tidbits from the forum on tweens and texting:

• "The future of security online has to start with the individual. Safety means reputation, privacy, and identity." - Michael Clark of SafetyWeb
• Teaching "digital literacy" is shared responsibility among parents, schools and kids (they have things to teach us too!) - Dane Snowden of CTIA-The Wireless Association
• "It's important for parents to teach kids that no digital communication is private - it is all public because regardless of your own privacy settings, others can save and forward anything online." - Marsali Hancock of the Internet Keep Safe Coalition
• "When you delete something on Facebook, it is deleted from your profile (but photo tags are NOT), but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be careful with what you post." - Tim Sparapani of Facebook
• 42% of parents opt not to use parental controls on mobile phones - is it because they don't want to or don't know how?
• "Make sure you know what apps are on your kid's phones - that way you know what information is being shared." - Michael Clark of SafetyWeb

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