Why teaching digital hygiene matters (with insights from Adrianus Warmenhoven)

Basic hygiene is drilled into our routines from early childhood: washing our hands, combing our hair, taking a shower, and maintaining our health to avoid getting sick. Digital hygiene is not much different, and good online habits can be taught from the day we start using the internet.

Today, we’ll discuss digital hygiene, why it’s important to teach it to young people, and how we can adjust our routines to be healthier online. We’ll also share insights from Adrianus Warmenhoven, cybersecurity advisor and spokesperson for NordVPN, on how young people can be lured toward criminal activity on the dark web, and what parents and educators can do to create a healthier digital ecosystem.

What is digital hygiene?

Digital hygiene describes the behavioral habits that people follow online. These include how they communicate with other users online, how they manage their accounts and credentials, and even how frequently they update their device software. Digital hygiene applies to mobile devices as well as computers and tablets.

Digital hygiene can be aided by tools such as VPNs or password managers, which help users build and maintain their security foundation. However, basic built-in features can also be helpful—for instance, setting up folders for file organization or doing regular cleanups and backups are also part of digital hygiene. 

Developing digital hygiene skills

Think back to your childhood—it probably took some time before you established a routine like brushing your teeth or cleaning your room regularly. Likewise, digital hygiene skills might require some time to learn and foster. After all, knowing how to switch on the device does not mean you innately know how to take good care of it and of your digital life.

Let’s start with the first cybersafety step you encounter when setting up a new device: the password. This is the main access key to your computer, which means you need to pull all the tricks out of the password security hat. Adrian Warmenhoven recommends using a passphrase—a phrase known only by you that, by default, uses a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters and punctuation marks (keeping in mind that spaces also count as special characters).

Passphrases tend to be more secure and more difficult to crack than regular passwords. The phrase can be coherent or nonsensical—as long as it works for you. However, you can also choose a more conventional, long, complex password—use our Password Generator to get some ideas.

Another area where digital hygiene skills can be honed is file management. Perhaps you’re a file hoarder who’s kept records of the past decade of digital ticket stubs, document scans, will-read-later ebooks, used-once-in-a-blue-moon software, and other random files. People tend to let files take up more space on their devices in case they need them in the future, or just because they like a neat organization system. However, this organization can turn into a liability.

If the device was breached and cybercriminals obtained its internal files, they could learn sensitive information about you. To minimize this risk, Adrianus Warmenhoven recommends regularly purging your device of old files and keeping the personal separate from the professional. Don’t connect your personal cloud drive to your work computer or the school network, or vice versa. As files get synced back and forth, they might fall out of your reach. If you must use the same device for personal, work, or study purposes, you can utilize profile switching in your preferred browser.

Other activities, like deleting unused apps from your device, switching on a VPN when using public internet networks, turning off the computer after use, or updating your OS regularly, also contribute to establishing good digital hygiene habits. The key is consistency—certain habits require a daily routine, while others can be done periodically. Consider setting a schedule for device cleanups to prevent digital clutter from piling up.

How can young people learn digital hygiene?

It’s easy to assume that generations Z and Alpha inherently understand technology because they’ve grown up with the internet. However, just as we’ve discussed, these digital skills need to be nurtured before they become daily habits. As stated by Warmenhoven, “The rapid expansion of the internet has created an illusion that it’s something you know, not something you’re taught about. As such, the younger generation isn’t always explicitly taught the ethics of being online.”

According to research* into young children’s digital literacy conducted at the University of Sheffield in 2017, while children can develop early skills from exposure to technology at home, additional scaffolding is necessary to develop a clearer comprehension of what that technology does and how it works. Researchers recommended that teaching digital literacy skills from an early age and as children enter school can help prepare them for future challenges like employment or leisure pursuits.

The goal of digital literacy education is not just to teach young people how a computer works or how to connect to the internet. It encompasses subjects like online etiquette, which is the proper way of conducting yourself online and communicating with other users. Awareness of cyberbullying, online harassment, and how to handle exposure to negative behavior correctly also come into play.

Privacy is another important subject—younger kids may overshare personal details online, accidentally revealing private information about themselves and their families, which can aid cybercriminals. As an example, Warmenhoven cites his own experience as a parent: he’s taught his son not to accept all friend requests when playing online games, or to reveal too much information to strangers in chats.

For the nurturing of these digital hygiene skills to succeed, parents and educators need to be directly involved in the process. As the use of computers in the classroom increases, the first lessons involving computers could focus on healthy usage first, and more subject-specific education second.

How to steer clear of bad habits online?

Getting caught up in cybercrime is a big risk for young people online. According to Warmenhoven, this is as much a social problem as it is a technical and legal one, influenced by the generation gap of internet users.

There’s a notable divide between older and younger userbases on the internet. As Warmenhoven put it, the generation before him had no internet and is now struggling to learn how it works, while his own generation lived through the shift from no internet to internet everywhere. The internet has become a self-explanatory technology that affects practically every angle of our daily lives.

The balance between teaching young people digital hygiene and restricting their use of technology can be fickle. Joint European research** into the role of parents in young children’s engagement with digital technologies showed that parents often act as gatekeepers of children’s access to the digital world, protecting them from excessive exposure to the internet.

However, too much gatekeeping was proven to lead to resourceful behavior in children, such as finding loopholes and getting around restrictions. Children were able to develop strategies to look up content that was otherwise inappropriate or age-restricted.

Young people's curiosity can lead them to discover the darker side of the internet, such as hacker communities. Warmenhoven has noted that the shift to criminal activity usually starts small—a cybercriminal may ask a young yet technically savvy person to commit a small misdemeanor for a reward, gradually raising the stakes and the rewards.

The problem is not just the individual crimes that young people may commit but also the broader consequences. Sometimes, the aftermath is several degrees of separation from the initial act, such as disrupting a supply chain or taking down a government portal, and the young person who’s committed an illegal activity online may not realize they’ve caused it.

The onus is on the parents and teachers to actively talk to their children about safe internet practices and online risks. There should be active and open communication between adults and children about online behavior and its consequences, whether it’s bullying or criminal activity, and to guide them in the right direction, steering them away from negative influences.

Adrianus Warmenhoven offers an example: Bureau Halt, a Dutch organization that helps young people who are caught hacking. It creates opportunities for kids and teenagers to hone their programming skills and discover employment opportunities in the tech sector. The goal of organizations like Bureau Halt is to provide a second chance and turn bad online habits into good prospects.

Teaching young people digital hygiene is not a one-and-done affair. It requires consistent education and awareness of digital threats to prevent children from falling into the wrong influences. The goal of parents and educators—Warmenhoven included—is to create a digital world that is safer and better for the next generation by actively involving children in this process.

* Marsh, J. et al. Young children’s initiation into family literacy practices in the digital age. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 15(1), 47-60.

** Dias, P. et al. The role of parents in the engagement of young children with digital technologies: Exploring tensions between rights of access and protection, from ‘Gatekeepers’ to ‘Scaffolders’. Global Studies of Childhood, 6(4), 414-427.