ALTON – Sixth and seventh grade students at Alton Middle School will spend an hour talking about the dangers of social media and internet use with Madison County Associate Judge Veronica Armouti on March 9.
The presentation, "Worries of the World Wide Web," is an effort spearheaded by the Illinois Judges Association (IJA) to squash toxic online behaviors in teens before they even develop. The presentation will be given to students in the school's Advancement Via Individual Determination college readiness program.
These toxic online behaviors addressed in the presentation can include bullying, harassment, recording school fights, videotaping underage drinking and drug use, sending nude or semi-nude photos to classmates or saving and sending said photos to even more students. As children of younger and younger ages are being given cellphones and access to the Internet, the IJA is hurrying to keep up with educating adolescents on the consequences of poor online choices.
Armouti said that she knows how these decisions can impact the future of a young person and wants students to understand that these behaviors could lead to criminal charges, academic consequences and even the suicide of the child victimized by the bullying.
"I have seen the devastating results that can occur as a result of one bad decision of a young person," Armouti stated in a press release. "If we can get these students to think, 'wow, that could happen to me,' or 'I didn't realize that could really happen because of just forwarding a picture or a text,' then we have begun to make at least a dent in the way young people communicate today."
Armouti will bring her own real-life court experiences to the presentation, as well as television reports from national and local news sources about cases of criminal prosecution in social media bullying and taking nude photos. She will also feature a YouTube video created by a teen cyberbullying victim and a compilation of profiles of teens who have taken their own lives as a direct result of being antagonized online.
This program was initiated by Judges Susan Boles and Clint Hill of the Kane County Circuit Court, who were alarmed by the increasing problems juveniles face on social media today.
“If we can make even one student think twice before sending or forwarding on any type of this material, then we have made an impact,” Boles stated in the press release.
Armouti's presentation will follow more than 50 preceding ones made to schools in Kane County, and the judges have spoken to more than 10,000 students since the program's launch in January 2017.