Norms and responsibilities

We all have the right to communicate, and so we have always taught our children how to be responsible communicators and what communication is appropriate. For the most part we handled the task of teaching that responsibility as one more in a long list of daily lessons shared. Digital communication, however, has upped the ante on the importance of teaching responsible communication skills. The speed with which we can communicate, the immediacy of our opportunities to do so, and the sheer number of people we can reach--knowingly or unknowingly--make teaching digital citizenship vital--for those we reach with our communications, but also for ourselves. Each of us now has far more power to affect others with our communications, and perhaps less power to control our own privacy--a word perhaps harder than ever to define. The responsibilities inherent in digital communication are immense.