The New Loop

PBS Frontline's special Growing Up Online, which can be found via this link, documents how today's kids are using the internet, what they are doing on it, and what their parents are doing (or not doing) in response. It outlines several kids and parents from a New Jersey town, including a Goth model, the head of the PTA and her family, a guy who is never unplugged, a girl with an eating disorder, a cyber bulliee, and several other local teens who discuss why they use what they use. Every on interviewed said that they use the internet all the time simply because everybody else uses it and they do not want to be left out of the social loop. All the parents all have the same concerns about their children's usage. They worry about predators, and although none of them say it, but I'm sure they do worry about it, is that colleges and future employers can easily see all that their children post online. However, the teenagers quickly dispell these by admitting that 1) they know how to tell if there is unwanted attention and 2) they can easily delete all problematic media from their accounts. The teenagers' biggest problem with using the internet is when their parents view their profiles because they see this as an invasion of privacy. The one thing that parents never really mention as a concern is cyber bullying. It is sad that the only one who does is the father of a bulliee who killed himself when he was 13.

On the whole, I think that the internet has had a positive impact on kids. They are free to express themselves in ways they weren't able to before. They can easily keep in touch with friends. School work becomes somewhat easier thanks to online study guides and quick reference encyclopedias, dictionaries, etc. However, it gives them access to things they should not see, such as the anorexic girl finding pages with tips on how to stay true to Ana and the bulliee who found pages on how best kill himself and how to tie the noose. It can also creates a sedentary lifestyle because all the kids do when at home is mainly sit down and stare at a screen. Also, as the video points out, it completely changes the way we teach because they have shorter attention spans and teachers become entertainers mainly instead of expanders of knowledge. But I feel that the positives outweigh the negatives on this topic.

I do not really worry about how much kids use the internet. The only area where I do worry is cyber bullying. Unlike classical bullying, there is no face to face contact so there's not really any way to see it happening or tell if someone is the subject to it, unless a parent it told or it is too late. But they are smart enough and mature enough to know where to draw the line in pretty much every other area. They're not like your average 5 year old who blindly follows anyone with candy. They know how to be safe from harm.