Growing Up Online
Last week PBS aired an eye-opening Frontline episode, Growing Up Online. Some thought-provoking quotes from the program's producers:
- Online Predators: One of the biggest surprises in making this film was the discovery that the threat of online predators is misunderstood and overblown. The data shows that giving out personal information over the Internet makes absolutely no difference when it comes to a child's vulnerability to predation. (Rachel Dreitzen)
- Presence and Importance of Online Communication: Despite the research we did, I don't think I was prepared when we started talking to kids for the extent to which the Internet and other electronic communication has permeated all aspects of being a teenager. Almost every kid expressed the utter importance of being connected with friends all the time and how unthinkable a life without that connection would be. I think a lot of kids were bemused by our list of questions about "life online," because they don't sit around thinking about the Internet in their lives. It's just there, always, another tool for them to use or place for them to go. (Caitlin McNally)
- Social Networks Can Be Good: While there is certainly an abundance of stories about the dark and potentially dangerous places kids can form for themselves online, there were a lot of online kids we came across who seemed to really benefit from reaching out over the Internet. (John Maggio)
- Kids Consider EMail Old-Fashioned: Writing an e-mail for a lot of the kids we talked to is equivalent to sitting down and hand-writing a letter for me. They described e-mail as a slow, archaic way to keep in touch with your aunt halfway across the country or apply for a summer internship. Even the most articulate kids who aced all their English classes could switch effortlessly into IM or text-speak; quick, pithy, shorthand Internet language was second nature to almost all the kids we met. They're bilingual, and they intuitively understand an entire culture generated by the Internet, with customs and vocabulary that we had to learn step-by-step. (Caitlin McNally)
This program is well worth your time; you can still view it online at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/kidsonline/.
