This video was interesting, although seemed a bit stale. There wasn’t much new insight offered – kids use of the Internet has been a pop culture issue for years now. It was also sad to look into these kids lives. They no longer had any contact with the outside world, and most of their social lives revolved around the Internet. While most kids spend some time online, chatting with friends or checking facebook, I don’t think it is as all-consuming as it was for these kids. They were sampled from a small town and a school that admittedly had very high parental involvement, making it seem likely that the kids are simply weighing the risk factors and deciding that living online is the better choice as they are less likely to get “caught.” For me, it is sad that we are spending so much of our lives in cyberspace, but in terms of teenagers it might be safer. Kids are interested in bad stuff and they’re gonna find some way to try things out regardless of what any parents or schools try to do. I think if I were a parent, I would rather have my kid talking about having sex with someone on-line than actually out having sex with someone from their school. I don’t necessarily think it is a gateway, and that actually the Internet can be used somewhat as a deterrent. In the documentary, a bunch of kids got caught drinking because someone uploaded a video – high school students have been drinking underage at parties forever, but it is only because of things like youtube and myspace that they run a higher risk of getting caught. These sites could be somewhat helpful then, in that the kids run the risk of anything they do winding up online, which may serve to curb some of the behavior they might otherwise have engaged in.
Frontline Video: Growing Up Online
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