In this e-bulletin, you'll learn how to become a strong ally to young people as they navigate their on-line relationships.
The late Steve Jobs, the infamous Apple co-founder, once said: "Technology is nothing. What's important is that you have a faith in people, that they're basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they'll do wonderful things with them."
Canadians spend more hours on-line than any other country.
- 81% are using the internet and they average 45 hours a week on-line - a full work week plus overtime! Incredibly, over 17 million people in Canada are registered on Facebook.
When it comes to relationships, technology is simply an alternate way to communicate. In fact for teens, the boundary between their "on-line" and "off-line" lives is almost non-existent.
Connecting on-line can be lots of fun. However, young people need help learning how to develop healthy relationships on-line, just as they do in real life. If anything, the need is even greater.
Young people's on-line lives are largely invisible to adults. On-line communication is hard to monitor, and easy to hide from parents. Teens are highly skilled in social media, while adults often feel intimidated by the technology - they may tend to back away. Adults may feel we have no right to "interfere" in teens' on-line social life. But meanwhile, too many teens are being victimized by abusive on-line behaviour.
The resources in this e-bulletin are designed to help healthy relationship program practitioners to begin navigating the world of social media and on-line relationships, so you can better help young people to build these communication skills and set safe limits.
Anuradha Dugal
Director, Violence Prevention Program
Canadian Women's Foundation
Most people comply without grumbling, but some - 
