The Lord of the Flies Syndrome

A group of young boys are stranded on a desert island and create a new society, developing governing bodies, rules, norms and culture. This is the premise of William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies.” Unsurprisingly, this story ends in chaos and tragedy.

We have watched a new phenomenon develop in the last 10 years, which I have come to call the “Lord of the Flies Syndrome.” Our children have created a virtual island replete with its own rules, norms and culture. Parents, teachers and other role models are absent from this space and the results are disconcerting. Our children are crossing boundaries that they would not otherwise feel comfortable crossing, they are using inappropriate language regularly, and they are showing particular cruelty to others on a regular basis.

This virtual island is the island of social media.

The Solution: Virtual Herd Immunity

The term “herd immunity” has become popular in recent years, especially as pertains to vaccination of children. When a large-enough percentage of the population becomes immune to a disease, those who are not immune are protected because the disease has difficulty spreading.

I believe that the same principle applies to adult involvement in social media. Children will be far more careful about what and how they post if they assume that adults are watching.

The percentage of a population that must be immunized to create herd immunity from disease can be as high as 90 or 95 percent. The percentage needed in the area of social media is much lower. I estimate that 5 to 10 percent of engaged parents will solve this problem.

Adult involvement is the most important factor in establishing healthy social media etiquette among our children. I have observed great kids succumb to the challenges of social media usage. I have also observed children who struggle socially and emotionally behave in exemplary fashion on social media when they know they are being observed by adults.

How to Interact With Social Media: Overcoming Common Assumption and Norms

Teachers:

The general consensus among educators is to prohibit interaction between teachers and students on personal social media forums. While there are valid reasons for this consensus opinion, including concerns about sexual misconduct or exposure of students to inappropriate postings by teachers, I believe that discouraging or prohibiting teacher-student social media interactions is a mistake. We should encourage our teachers to be present and involved in the social media lives of our students. If we don’t trust our teachers to interact appropriately with students or to post appropriately on social media, why do we trust them in the classroom? This does not mean I ascribe to an “anything goes” mentality. We should establish guidelines and protocols that protect our students. But the damage from the absence of role models outweighs the potential damage of teachers who abuse the system.

Parents:

Children are never happy with parents who insist on monitoring their social media interactions. Resistance to monitoring attempts is age appropriate, especially for older children. Early engagement is key to successful oversight as it is much easier to set up a system for monitoring your fifth grader than it is to set up a system to monitor your high school student. If you begin monitoring them early, it will also be much easier to maintain the monitoring as they get older. Students at my school know that we have the capacity to monitor the sites they visit. We have established this as a school norm, resulting in overall student understanding and acceptance of our policy. The same clear policies at home will result in similar understandings and acceptance, even if not to the same degree as understandings at school.

The landscape of social media is changing rapidly. As parents, we are thrilled that we have finally mastered Facebook, only to learn that our children think that Facebook is for old people. Involving ourselves more intensely in our children’s social media world and trying our best to keep up with them will help us better navigate our parental responsibilities in this area.

We can also take some solace in the knowledge that our children, far more versed in the world of social media than we are, will definitely do a far better job monitoring and educating their children about the challenges of social media that will arise in their days.

By Rabbi Daniel Alter

Rabbi Daniel Alter is Head of School at The Moriah School.