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The biggest risk is not so much the danger of being harmed but the danger of missed opportunities, especially at school. As we point out in, Online Safety 3.0: Protecting and Empowering Youth, schools too often block access to social media and fail to use it in the educational process. While it's true that there are some online activities that ought not to be done during school hours, banning all social media is the 21st century equivalent of banning all books just because some books are inappropriate for use in school.

I'm also concerned that Internet safety education is missing a big opportunity to reinforce digital citizenship, media literacy and critical thinking -- skills that will serve for life, on and off the net. We can certainly warn kids about the dangers du jour, but the ultimate solution to keeping kids safe is to instill an internal desire to treat themselves and others respectfully.