Google Docs is seen as a Microsoft Word alternative, which leads many parents to believe that the productivity suite is solely used for work. Who would use Word for anything other than document creation and writing? Just maybe: children who are blocked from social media platforms.
Connected education has come a long way, especially when one considers online tools like Google Docs. These web apps have become a go-to tool for schools, due to strong collaboration features, powerful sharing tools, and an instant cloud autosave feature. They also integrate with classroom management services like Google Classroom and Moodle.
While these tools are convenient, collaboration opens itself up to misuse. The parental control app Bark has lifted the lid on how children are using Google Docs as an informal social network.
Confused? Here’s how it compares to Facebook:
Chatting
When a shared Google Doc is open, it acts a blank piece of paper for multiple pens. As a user writes in the document, other users see that text on their screens in real time. This makes it a shared Google Doc that can be shared with tens or hundreds of people, all in effect writing in a text chat. Alternatively, the Doc can be shared with one other person to make a two-way private chat.
Why do children do this?
Schools tend to block social media platforms with a firewall and they intend Google Docs to be used for work. It also acts as a good chat disguise for students. One child reported that he had an old history paper which he converted into a chat room, so when his parents checked on him, he just had to scroll up from the chat page.
Bullying
Where there’s group chatting, there’s group bullying. Bark reports it has seen more than 60,000 cases of kids ganging up on other children in Google Docs. These kids work together to write hurtful things in a shared Google Doc of which the victim is a part. In other cases, kids create lists or “burn books” and exclude the victim.
Click here to find out how bullying doesn’t stop at text messages, why this is happening, and what parents can do to make sure that their children are safe from bullying.
Rich Media Communication
A blank Google Doc is more than just text: a bully can use words, memes, photos, videos, GIFs, among others. The document can be structured in a way that allows other children to comment underneath a like one would comment underneath a photo on Facebook. Like Snapchat, one can delete a photo for everyone once it has been posted, provided nobody in the document has taken a screenshot.
Device monitoring is a complicated issue for parents. It would be easy to say: Bark, the parent control app mentioned above, can monitor text messages, emails, YouTube activity, and even Google Docs with its service. But it’s not always this simple.
Tech-savvy kids will find a way to connect or work around blocking applications because they are likely to know more about how the blocking app functions than do the parents who set it up. This Google Doc problem is simply a digital version of passing a secret notebook around.
The best thing as a parent is to teach one’s kids how to deal with bullying online. In Tech-Savvy Parenting: A Guide to Raising Safe Children in a Digital World, Arthur Goldstuck and Nikki Bush outline a procedure, starting with the advice that children should be shown the online safety mantra of “Stop, Block, and Tell”:
- The child must stop what they are doing, and take a deep breath. It is important that they do not engage with the bully.
- The child must block the person who is harassing them. As a parent, one must show one’s child how to use the blocking feature on social media and instant messaging apps that one allows one’s child to be on.
- The child must tell a parent or another adult they trust.