This could be the resumé of our Wellbeing session today.

Our Pillar 4 is dedicated to online safety.

The virtual world is a permanent presence in our lives and the young generations, which were born in this era, see this as something totally natural and spontaneous.

However like many other things in life, there are risks, depending on how we use it, deal with it and manipulate it.

Our conversation was triggered that people should be free to post whatever they want without being judged. However, quickly we understood that assumption was not fully accurate and above all, the reality is that the world online is more open than an open book. The facts are once we post something online, we are no longer owners of what we post. It belongs to that platform and it might stay visible, like an art masterpiece in a museum, for all who want to see.

Having said this, there are legal regulations about the contents shared online and these can be quite strict and bear important consequences. And the trick is that these change from country to country – which is something to have in mind. The boys seemed to be somehow familiar with the legal frame in their home countries: but when it comes to Switzerland, for instance…

The aim is not to scare but raise awareness that these topics are quite sensitive and one needs to be fully careful with what manipulations go online. The facts is that it can jeopardize our future, a university application, a job interview…

As an example we asked the students to Google themselves and some were surprised to see images of them, publicly visible, when they weren’t even aware of it.

A very delicate subject, that we were all somehow familiar with, which deserves our deepest reflection as quite often, we seem to dismiss the potential consequences…