![\"LYNETTE-OWENS\"](\"\/internet-safety\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/LYNETTE-OWENS.png\")
By Lynette Owens<\/p>\nBy Lynette Owens<\/p>\n
Today, we are celebrating Safer Internet Day along with many other organizations, teachers, and families, in over 100 countries.\u00a0 It\u2019s the annual celebration when we bring attention to all matters related to making the Internet a safer and better place for ourselves and others, and it\u2019s also a reminder that we still have lots of work to do.\u00a0 We have chosen to celebrate this day since 2010 with the launch of a very important campaign to us called \u201cWhat\u2019s Your Story?\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s a video contest with a social media twist.\u00a0 Each year, we ask a question and we invite individual film-makers and schools to answer it.\u00a0 Each year, the question hopes to elicit responses that teach us in a way that those of us who never grew up with the Internet ever could.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s Your Story? highlights the experiences of young people, whose voices we often exclude when we wrestle with how to raise a generation that is safe, responsible and thriving online.\u00a0 Each year we ask them for their stories, and each year they\u2019ve answered in ways that enlighten us, entertain us, and inspire us.<\/p>\n
In 2016, we have decided to ask a very simple question:\u00a0 \u201cWhat does the Internet mean to you?\u201d![\"WYS2015_Logo_black\"](\"\/internet-safety\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/WYS2015_Logo_black-150x150.jpg\"){kind=logo}
<\/p>\n
In the past, we\u2019ve been more specific in our contest theme, asking about good mobile phone use, being a good online citizen, and even asking what the good side of the Internet looks like.\u00a0 But there seems to be a shift happening, subtly but certainly, in the ways our youngest citizens view technology in their lives.\u00a0 Schools are increasingly using technology to improve teaching, learning, and communication driving our kids to be online for more than just entertainment.\u00a0 Teens are becoming more protective of their privacy by abandoning more public spaces like Facebook and Twitter for services like WhatsApp and Snapchat.\u00a0 When 10 and 11 year old kids regularly tell me they have their own phones and are using Instagram, Skype, and Dubsmash with each other (because Facebook is for grown-ups) with their parents approval, it\u2019s not surprising, but when you take all of these trends together, we believe something is amiss.<\/p>\n
With these shifts, there may be new benefits, new challenges, and new ways that the Internet is changing the way young people live and interact with each other and the world around them.\u00a0 Getting meaningful research on an entire generation of kids (especially those under 13) is very difficult and expensive to do, but someone will do it, at some point.\u00a0 In the meantime, we don\u2019t want to wait.\u00a0 We want to know what the Internet means to them.\u00a0 Without this insight, how can we help best support them to be successful online?\u00a0 Are we worrying about the wrong things?\u00a0 Have we missed something that they need help with?<\/p>\n
The theme for Safer Internet Day 2016 is \u201cPlay your part for a better Internet.\u201d\u00a0 We have chosen to play our part through the What\u2019s Your Story? contest.\u00a0 And we invite individual-filmmakers, students, teachers, parents and schools to do their part, too, by telling us \u201cWhat does the Internet mean to you?\u201d and sharing those stories with the world.<\/p>\n