A while ago, we used a few lessons to watch a documentary called “Growing up Online”. It was a documentary about all of the horribly detrimental effects the internet has on a poor, helpless child’s emotional development. Right. Well, not really. The documentary was probably earnestly trying to inform us and give us different views about the effect the internet can have on teens.
The main problem with it was that, although clearly showing the dangers of the internet, the cases given were more often than not the exceptional ones. Like a teenage girl who acts all happy at school but spends her time at home cooped up in her room looking at pro-Anna sites. Believe me when I say that not every teenage girl does that.
There was also the girl, Jessica, who had an entirely different personality as some kind of self-made internet model called "Autumn Edows". She had been living that way for a few years before her parents started to suspect anything. Although it is true that the internet allows you to reinvent yourself, not every teen does so. Let alone in such a drastic way.
Or what about the story of a boy who got bullied at school. He'd come home and go on the internet, and he'd be bullied there, too. He started going to this suicide site ('Take this test to find out what for you personally is the best way to kill yourself'), and started chatting online with a 'friend' who allegedly also wanted to commit suicide. After a while, the boy had one last conversation with him, in which the 'friend' told him that it was just as well he was finally going to do it, for he was getting sick of the boy's whining. The boy did kill himself, and his father found this conversation. When he tried to talk to the 'friend', that boy said they'd never talked about such things. The man called, at the same time, that 'friend's mom, but she covered for her son.
This extensive tale really signifies two of the main ways in which children can do bad and irresponsible things on the internet, but it does certainly not mean any child would use the internet in such a way.
Then there is the other side of the spectrum: a mother who restricts her practically adult children from using social media and enforces this by putting the only computer in the house in a place she can see it. But really, that's not all that makes her really annoying to the typical teen, including the ones watching the documentary. Because with her, it doesn't stop at the internet. Apparently she has at one point in time felt the need to inform every parent of every student via e-mail that many children had gone to a certain party they weren't allowed to be at. She said she was surprised when a few of those parents told her to mind her own business. She was also surprised, but mostly saddened, when her son wouldn't speak to her because she'd ratted out all his friends to their parents. Unbelievable. Really, after a while it was starting to get funny: whenever you heard her voice every student would groan or mutter something under their breath.
It was an interesting view into the minds of people so concerned with the internet, but the examples it gave to illustrate it's point were a bit too 'out there' to make most people fear or be increasingly wary of the internet.
The main problem with it was that, although clearly showing the dangers of the internet, the cases given were more often than not the exceptional ones. Like a teenage girl who acts all happy at school but spends her time at home cooped up in her room looking at pro-Anna sites. Believe me when I say that not every teenage girl does that.
There was also the girl, Jessica, who had an entirely different personality as some kind of self-made internet model called "Autumn Edows". She had been living that way for a few years before her parents started to suspect anything. Although it is true that the internet allows you to reinvent yourself, not every teen does so. Let alone in such a drastic way.
Or what about the story of a boy who got bullied at school. He'd come home and go on the internet, and he'd be bullied there, too. He started going to this suicide site ('Take this test to find out what for you personally is the best way to kill yourself'), and started chatting online with a 'friend' who allegedly also wanted to commit suicide. After a while, the boy had one last conversation with him, in which the 'friend' told him that it was just as well he was finally going to do it, for he was getting sick of the boy's whining. The boy did kill himself, and his father found this conversation. When he tried to talk to the 'friend', that boy said they'd never talked about such things. The man called, at the same time, that 'friend's mom, but she covered for her son.
This extensive tale really signifies two of the main ways in which children can do bad and irresponsible things on the internet, but it does certainly not mean any child would use the internet in such a way.
Then there is the other side of the spectrum: a mother who restricts her practically adult children from using social media and enforces this by putting the only computer in the house in a place she can see it. But really, that's not all that makes her really annoying to the typical teen, including the ones watching the documentary. Because with her, it doesn't stop at the internet. Apparently she has at one point in time felt the need to inform every parent of every student via e-mail that many children had gone to a certain party they weren't allowed to be at. She said she was surprised when a few of those parents told her to mind her own business. She was also surprised, but mostly saddened, when her son wouldn't speak to her because she'd ratted out all his friends to their parents. Unbelievable. Really, after a while it was starting to get funny: whenever you heard her voice every student would groan or mutter something under their breath.
It was an interesting view into the minds of people so concerned with the internet, but the examples it gave to illustrate it's point were a bit too 'out there' to make most people fear or be increasingly wary of the internet.
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