Activity

Digital Friendships

Grades 3-5

Subjects: Communication & Collaboration, Personal Wellness

Overview

Students will compare and contrast the different kinds of online-only friendships. Describing the benefits and risks of these friendships, as well as learn how to respond to an online-only friend if they are asked something uncomfortable.

NB Curricular Connections

Personal Wellness

Strand: Relationships – Big Idea: Students will apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to establish and maintain healthy relationships

What You’ll Need

Lesson Slides
Finish the Story Handout
Heart’s Online Friendships Handout (Student Version and Teacher Version)
Lesson Quiz (Optional)
Take-Home Resources (Optional)

Instructions

Warm Up: Who Do You Chat With?

Ask: Have you ever chatted with someone online? Who do you chat with? How often? Take turns sharing your responses with your partner. (Slide 4) Invite students to share out. Follow up with students who share by asking if the people they chat with are online-only friends or if they also know the friends in person.
Say: Today we’re going to talk about online friendships, and some of the benefits and risks that go with them. Before we get started, can anyone tell me: What does the word “benefit” mean. Invite volunteers to define benefit, and if necessary, clarify that it means something positive that you get from a situation – in this case, online friendships.
Ask: What about the word “risk”? What does this mean? Invite volunteers to define risk, and if necessary, clarify that it means something negative or dangerous that comes from a situation – in this case, online friendships.

Compare and Contrast: Two Scenarios

Distribute one copy of the Heart’s Online Friendships Student Handout to each student. Read aloud the directions for reading “Heart’s Story.” (Slide 5)
Give Students seven minutes to read the two scenarios independently. If you are concerned about students’ ability to complete the reading independently, consider reading it aloud while they follow along silently.
Ask: What are some words that you circled? Invite students to share unknown words, and prompt other students to attempt definitions if necessary, support discussion by providing an example sentence that includes the unknown word.
Draw a large Venn diagram on the board or project the Venn diagram from the student handout. Say: As a class, we’re going to use this diagram to compare and contrast the two scenarios that you just read about. Copy the class answers into the Venn diagram on your handout as we discuss. Put details that are only true about Scenario 1 in the left square. Details that are only true about Scenario 2 will go in the right square. Details that are true about both will go in the middle.
Ask: What happens to Heart in these two scenarios? How do her feelings change? Take turns sharing your ideas with your partner. (Slide 6) Invite students to share out. Prompt them to support their answers with details from the story. As students provide answers, add them to the appropriate place in the Venn diagram. If students make statements about CJcool11’s gender or age, make sure to clarify that Heart has never seen or met CJcool11 in person and doesn’t really know those details about them.

Benefits and Risks

Ask: What are some of the benefits and risks of these relationships for Heart? Take turns sharing your ideas with your partner. (Slide 7) Invite students to share out answers with the class. Add any new information to the diagram and add + or – symbols next to the benefits and risks. If necessary, make sure to clarify three important benefits and risks:
- Heart gets to learn about someone who lives in a different country and who has different experiences. (Kaia friendship) (+)
- Heart can talk to someone she can share things with. (Both friendships) (+)
- Heart has never seen or spoken to CJcool11. When you have only chatted online with someone, you don’t really know if they are who they say they are. (CJcool11 friendship) (-)
Say: Heart does not know for sure if CJcool11 is who they claim to be. This means Heart should be careful about what she shares. She should not share any private information. Private information is information about you that can be used to identify you because it is unique to you. (e.g., your full name or address). (Slide 8) Explain to students that sharing private information with online-only friends is risky because such friends may have a different age, gender, or personality than they led you to believe. Their intentions for the friendship might also be different from what they say. They may also want to use your private information in ways that negatively impact you. Students should “play it safe” and always protect private information, especially from online-only friends.
Ask: So, what are some ways that you could respond if an online-only friend asks you a question you don’t feel comfortable answering? What could you say back? Take turns sharing ideas with your partner. (Slide 9) Invite students to share their ideas with the class and capture ideas on the board. Answers could include.
- Say it’s a personal preference: “Sorry, I prefer not to give out information like that over the internet.
- Change the subject: “Oh man, it better not rain today.
- Say what really matters: “It doesn’t matter what the name of my street is. What matters is that it’s cool.”