Boarding has come a long way from the lonely experience it was for many kids just a generation ago.

Daily chats on Skype, Facetime, and a host of apps allowing parents a bird's-eye view of their child's daily life means that boarding is no longer the "hands-off" experience it once was for parents.

But just as smartphones and social media have facilitated more communication between parent and child, they have also led to a new, and often confusing, terrain of rule-setting for boarding-house staff.

"Social media is still the greatest point of grief for boarding-school staff," says Richard Stokes, executive director of the Australian Boarding Schools Association.

Social media overuse, or misuse, is a problem in dorms just as it is in households, he says.

"For every social media problem we solve, the kids are always four or five steps ahead of us with new means and new platforms. It can be an ugly world out there, and keeping up with it is an ongoing battle," says Mike Silcock, director of boarding at St Patrick's College in Ballarat.

Handing devices over in the evenings is common practice in most boarding schools, according to Dr Peter Miller, principal at The Geelong College.

"It's good practice at home too – get devices out of their bedrooms, because they are an incredible distraction and time-waster when they don't know how to drive them," Miller says.

When rules are broken, as they invariably are, college staff  deal with it as a "pastoral" rather than "punitive: issue, he adds.

"We say: 'What are you doing? It's just not healthy: you're communicating through the night. Get some sleep.' Our preferred approach is to set expectations for these things, rather than rules."

School-day blocking

At Tara Anglican School for Girls, boarders are free to use social media in the evenings, just as they might at home, but younger boarders must hand phones and laptops in at night before bed.

"We understand it's their home and they need to learn like everyone else to work within what's reasonable, and need to learn to live with social media as well," says principal Susan Middlebrook.

 "As problems come up, we discuss them with the girls. There's a lot of effort that goes into making sure the girls are aware of what's right and proper, and lessons like 'don't put anything on social media that your grandmother would be embarrassed about' – using sorts of tests for them about what's right," Middlebrook says.

Pymble Ladies' College principal Vicki Waters says social media has many wonderful advantages in a boarding setting, not least the reassuring fact that Mum and Dad are just a Skype call away, or that important college events can be streamed. But the girls are also educated in the downsides.

"We guide the girls to accept responsibility for their digital footprint, and gradually we find the 'wow' factor around social media usage has calmed down," says Waters.

Susan Middlebrook encourages parents to familiarise themselves with their children's Facebook and Instagram accounts and generally stay on top of their digital lives.

"We've heard of kids who get an Instagram account and their personality can change if they don't get enough 'Likes' of their photos," says ABSA's Stokes.  "I've heard of a parent who talked their daughter into closing their account, and gradually that child's personality came back."

Vigilance in the house

Even with parents vigilant to the downsides kids will find a way to outsmart them, says Stokes, and often boarding-house staff are best placed to police what goes on.

"Kids are very clever about using Facebook nowadays. They have little private groups so nobody finds out. The reality is, every time kids find something they like and parents find out about it, they change and find something better.

"I reckon parents still have no idea what their kids are doing, even if their children live at home. Boarding-house staff have a better idea because we are educating them and I think, generally, boarding schools are doing a really good job of adapting to the changes that come with social media. They are finding a really good way of making sure parents have a way of seeing exactly what's going on."

Although the job of policing social media is ongoing, on the whole Stokes says digital technologies have been revolutionary for the boarding experience.

"Once upon a time, a parent would send a child of 12 or 13 years of age to boarding school and they'd get back an 18-year-old adult and they hadn't watched them or been part of their growing up in any way, shape or form," he says. "Now, there are so many wonderful opportunities through the internet that give them a chance to be involved with their child's life; talk with them, Skype them or connect through Facetime. They can connect through Facebook groups. Lots of our boarding schools have got really active Facebook groups that are restricted to the kids and their parents, and so they post photos about what's going on."

The association recently experimented with a program to put fixed cameras in schools' sporting and performance venues to allow parents to log on and watch a streaming video of sports or performances. 

Although it ultimately decided not to go ahead with the program, Stokes says he's still hopeful the idea will be implemented once the technology is secure and fail-safe: "With all these technologies, parents are actively involved in what's going on in the boarding school, even while their kids are a long way from home. Parents can see today what their kids are doing today. Isn't that awesome?"