Oct 17, 2018 By Harry Funk staff Writer hfunk@thealmanac.Net 4 min read

The message to the students gathered in the Bethel Park High School auditorium was clear: Put away those cellphones.

Beyond common courtesy, the reason for the directive became clearer as District Judge Ronald Arnoni and professional speaker Brad Killmeyer launched the morning’s program: LEAD.

That stands for leadership, education, accountability and direction, and the Oct. 11 presentation for freshman marked the first of many that Arnoni and Killmeyer plan to bring to schools and community groups throughout the region and beyond.

The program’s intent is to prompt young people to make sound decisions, providing an array of considerations with regard to their futures. Particularly stressed are the potential ramifications of social media use, or in many cases, overuse.

“Teens spend nine hours a day consuming media,” Killmeyer, a 2008 Upper St. Clair High School graduate who owns the education-oriented company Formulate Your Future, shared with the Bethel Park audience.

People under 25 open the Snapchat multimedia messaging app an average of 25 times a day, he said, and 95 million images are shared daily on the Instagram social networking service.

Using smartphones and related devices certainly has its upside, Killmeyer acknowledged. “But as much as we see that social media can be good and productive, we also see that it can be a challenge.”

A major one of those is the distractive component, which is evident in almost any public place today: Folks look at their phones instead of paying much attention to what transpires around them.

How to stay safe on social media

• Do not post your schedule or information on when you are leaving town.

• Avoid geotagging, which allows people to see where you are at any given time.

• The URL should start with https://.

• Suspending an account is not the same as deleting an account.

• Make sure your virus protection is updated automatically.

• Set your Facebook security parameters to “friends only.”

• Do not post information that reveals commonly asked for security questions, such as birthday, mother’s maiden name, etc.

• Digital images in JPG, TIF and Raw formats contain information about where the photo was taken.

Source: District Judge Ronald Arnoni, state Sen. Guy Reschenthaler and cyber crimes expert James Dill

Perusing social media can have a detrimental effect on self-confidence and self-esteem, Killmeyer said, explaining that most users tend toward positive images and posts instead of the challenges they face.

“It gives us an unrealistic picture of what actually happens day-to-day,” he said, “and we start to say to ourselves: Why aren’t we like that? Why isn’t everything going well for us?”

That can be taken to an extreme with cyberbullying, as a video shown by Arnoni and Killmeyer illustrated. The Associated Press report concerned a 12-year-old Florida girl who took her own life because of what others were posting online.

“Really think long and hard about what you do on social media. It’s important to your life. It’s important to someone else’s,” Arnoni, whose district covers Bethel Park and Upper St. Clair, told the students.

“And by the way, if you bully somebody on social media, or you do anything of that sort in person,” he said, “and it gets to me, you will be dealt with severely. I can assure you of that.”

Another aspect of social media for young people to take into consideration is that these days, college admissions offices tend to conduct searches to gain insight about applicants.

Arnoni provided some advice regarding what they might find: “If you don’t want your grandmother to see it, don’t post it.”

He also suggested some alternatives to nearly constant use of devices.

“Think about taking time to open a book, have a conversation. Get yourself away from the phone a little bit,” he advised. “I always like to say, ‘I want to learn something new every day.’ I hope you guys start to have that same mindset, maturity and thought process.”

The LEAD program also addresses the negative effects of using alcohol and drugs.

“It will crush any opportunity you have to be successful in life,” Arnoni said. “I see it every day. I know, personally, people it’s affected, lives it’s affected, and it’s very difficult to escape from. So please, don’t make that poor decision.”