Internet safety education
Research has found that many of the online dangers popularised by the media, such as child sexual predators, are quite rare (Wolak, Finkelhor, Mitchell, & Ybarra, 2008). Most problems young people experience online involve sexual harassment and verbal peer aggression, paralleling problems that they are dealing with offline.
Prevention research, most recently Jones, Mitchell, & Walsh, 2014, shows that curricula with active, skill-based lessons and adequate time for learning have the best results. Effective programmes also define their goals clearly and focus their educational efforts on factors that are causally linked to the problem of concern.
Research from the early 1990s shows that assembly presentations using fear-based tactics are ineffective when applied to youth problems, but are still used today.
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