Website aims to bridge the technology gap

A new parents’ website is being launched by an online support organisation for young people’s mental health, reachout.com, at the second Technology for Well-Being conference in Dublin this Thursday.

“Bridging the digital disconnect” is the theme of the conference, where the technology gap between the so-called digital natives of the upcoming generation and their parents will be one of the topics.

Parents’ fears about the impact new technology could have on their children came out very strongly in research that informed the setting up of the website, says Naoise Kavanagh of Inspire Ireland, which runs reachout-com.

Their concerns often stem from not understanding the digital world and not being able to keep up – and how could they, she says. There’s always a new app, a new site. But the negativity of the internet is overhyped, she argues, and digital technology is the world of today.

“Censoring and cutting people off from online use isn’t going to work with older teenagers. What you have to do is keep communication open with them and discuss real-life boundaries and real-life behaviour.”

Inspire Ireland decided to set up the website – reachoutparents.com – after it noticed a lot of parents were going on reachout.com looking for information about their sons and daughters, about whom they were concerned, says Kavanagh.

While there is a lot of online information for parents of young children, there’s “not so much for the broad age range we cover, 12-25: those transitional periods young people go through”.

NUI Galway collaborated with Inspire Ireland to survey parents. Focus groups spoke repeatedly about their need for information on the use of social networking sites and issues about young people’s safety and wellbeing online.

Mental health is part of everything, Kavanagh points out. What’s important is building resilience and a sense of wellbeing for those “challenges we all face that can have an impact on your mental health if you haven’t developed your self-esteem”.

The conference will be highlighting the very positive role the web can play in supporting good mental health.

Young people are finding each other online in a way that schools don’t cater for, she says. “It is a big support if they can find like-minded people.”

Part of the most valued content on reachout.com is the real stories from other young people about challenging times and how they got through. It is hoped the website will offer parents the same sense of connectedness in realising other families are going through similar challenges.

Young people, when surveyed about what they thought parents needed to know, were very opposed to any two-tiered approach. They were telling us to “empower the parents but don’t be giving ‘them and us’ information”, Kavanagh says. “A lot of them said it was hugely important for parents to look after their own mental health.”

And, on the use of social media, they said it would be much more beneficial if parents understood what was going on, rather than snooping.

The Technology for Well-Being international conference takes place in the Croke Park conference centre, Dublin, this Thursday, September 25th. For more information, see reachout.com