Experts discussed the transition of schools to domestic messengers: “Strangers write to children”

Each of us spends a lot of time a day in messengers, whether for personal purposes – to communicate with friends and family, or for work. And some of the most active users of all kinds of chats are teachers, schoolchildren and their parents. Life in class and parent chats is in full swing literally around the clock. Whether there may be difficulties with the transition from foreign to domestic platforms, which has been talked about so much lately, and how to protect children while communicating in instant messengers, the experts discussed.

In October, the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation sent recommendations to teachers to switch from foreign messengers to Russian ones. As later clarified “MK” in the press service of the ministry, the letter distributed by the department is precisely “methodological support”, and not an order. Moreover, the letter did not and could not concern the parents.

The fact that instant messengers are the main tool of school communications was confirmed by the latest results of the VTsIOM survey. The vast majority of surveyed schoolchildren over 14 years old, teachers and parents use mobile messenger applications: 96%, 96%, 95%, respectively (2.5 thousand respondents were surveyed). Every day, 86% of teachers, 71% of schoolchildren and 59% of parents communicate in school chats. 84% of surveyed teachers and 82% of parents are members of parent chats. The top 3 most popular messengers among schoolchildren included VKontakte or VK Messenger (62%), Telegram and WhatsApp (58% and 55%, respectively). For parents and teachers, WhatsApp is in first place (71% and 76%).

At the same time, both teachers and parents literally groan from endless correspondence in chat rooms at any time of the day. According to the head of the direction of Kaspersky Lab for children’s online security Andrey Sidenko, 83% of the parents surveyed said that they were not satisfied with something in the parent chats. And, first of all, this is a large number of unnecessary messages that are pouring non-stop.

“Before you create a chat, you need to establish the rules of communication in it, fix them in its description,” the expert advised in this regard. – There are, for example, chat rooms where teachers only drop their messages without feedback from parents. And parents write them questions in private messages.

The cornerstone is the issue of ensuring the safety of children in messengers. It turned out that 52% of children have chats that are secret from their parents, and they communicate in them not with classmates, but with out-of-school acquaintances.

In addition, during a survey by Kaspersky Lab, it turned out that every tenth parent indicated that unfamiliar adults tried to ingratiate themselves with their child using instant messengers and social networks. And when the children were interviewed, every sixth child admitted this.

Sidenko reminded that children need to be explained about the use of private settings that exist in any messenger. The first thing to do is to close your phone number. Do not add contacts to yourself that the child does not know, for example, if they write to him from an unfamiliar number or send some links.

The expert believes that not only parents should remind the child about the rules of conduct in messengers – this should also be discussed in elementary school. “It needs to be made clear that content shared by children should not be personal. This includes the exchange of personal photos and documents, and the publication of some data related to geolocation, school number or home address,” Sydenko emphasized.

Scientific Director of the Laboratory for PR Support of Pedagogical Education of the Russian Academy of Education, Dean of the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosova Elena Vartanova, in turn, believes that the main issue here is not technical, but how much the messenger can replace ordinary human communication.

“Of course, Russia will be able to switch to domestic messengers in the educational process,” Elena Vartanova is convinced. – Another question is what will be pulled behind this? And to what extent is the child’s workload in the educational process using digital technologies acceptable in order to form a healthy and complete person in social communication? The communication benefits of instant messengers are obvious, but you need to ask yourself the question, can we replace the educational process with only digital communication?

The first aspect that Vartanova pointed out is the health of the child. The Russian Academy of Education, together with a number of departments, conducted a study on how restrictions on the use of gadgets at school affect children. “The results are amazing. Children became more attentive, began to study better. And their anxiety decreased, which was caused by waiting for a call, SMS, fear of losing a mobile phone, ”said Vartanova. She believes that the child should be given the opportunity to develop not only in the digital environment; therefore, perhaps, the school needs to raise the question of the “dosed” presence of children in such an environment.

The second point is the digital competencies of all participants in the educational process: children, parents and teachers. The dean of the Faculty of Journalism is convinced that “from the point of view of a confident user, replacing a foreign messenger with a Russian one is a technical issue, a matter of skills.”

– Russian software manufacturers should make more convenient platforms and services, listening to the wishes of the school, ministries… At the same time, they should pay attention to improving the user’s literacy. So that children who are used to TikTok can easily switch to domestic software. We think about children, about teachers too, but no one thinks about parents, – Vartanova noted. – Therefore, parents will remain in these chats, where they will communicate, creating unthinkable informational “white noise” …