The program video shows us a fact in today's society, the new generations are growing up with the computer. They are making friends online, playing games online, studying online, watching videos online and doing anything they want online. The kids are not reading any books or newspapers anymore, and even in the classroom, the computers are replacing books and blackboards.
Right now, the high school students or even the middle school students
are having their personal accounts on Facebook, MySpace and so on. They
are socializing online via those websites. They like to be friends with everybody but not their parents online and most of the kids like to keep "their secrets" away from their parents but sharing with "friends" online, even though some of the "friends" they don't even know who they are. In the video, Jessica found her new identity Autumn Edows on her space, because originally, she was a shy and awkward girl, but she wants to get more attention, therefore, she post many of her sexy pictures online. She became the one she wanted to be. But, the internet is sooooo public! There is no secret at all, finally her parents knew what she was doing online, and people started to think she is "slutty", she started to realize that was too over.
There are also may hidden dangerous online, like the children predator and the cyberbullying. Those dangerous, in my opinion, related to the kids want to be in the world outside of the parents can reach, which means the kids don't want their parents know what are they doing online. And the kids are always lack off the experience online, and they don't always notice the dangerous.
The other problem of growing up online is studying. Students are using many of the online studying tools like spark note, Wikipedia, to get the information for the assignments instead of actually reading the book. But it's actually a lazy and bad habit. It's maybe ok to do that in highschool, but once students get into the college, the studying materials gets harder and deeper, and required you to do researching by yourself, not only copy the ideas online, what you can do at that time?
The last point I want to talk about is parenting the internet generation. When kids are in the middle school and high school, they feel like their parents don't understand them at all but their friends. Therefore, they want to keep their own "secret" online but away from their parents. But, parents are always wondering what are they doing online? The reason they want to know is they care so much about their kids. But during this period, the best way is not stealing their secrets but talk to them, give them the right concepts and guidance, enough space and trust.
I agree with all your points. The youngsters nowadays rely heavily on the internet networks, even teachers post homework on Facebook instead of writing on the board in classrooms. The relationships between children and parents are often blocked by the internet since children don't want to share secrets and have conflicts with their parents, therefore they look for consolation online among their age groups. The internet helps studying but also limits new thinking because students copy ideas that they think are reasonable instead of connecting with their lives or making new ideas. Last but not least, since the technology could only go forward, it is important for both the parents and children to try to talk and understand each other.
ReplyDeleteToes are very good points you made, Jia! I think the problem of those kids from the video and others like them is not the Internet itself, but the communication problem with their parents. For example, the mother with a son and two daughters, she was trying to control every single step they were doing online and even asked the, for their Facebook passwords to use it in case of emergency. Practically, as a mother, she was right and was trying to protect her children from predators, but she didn't realize that by doing that she doesn't build trust between her and the kids, instead she crushes it. So the kids will prefer to go to the friends and use a computer there than using it at home. Parents like that lady don't protect their children by trying to control every step of their Internet usage, they just giving them a reason not to share with the, any secrets and trust some strangers . I agree with Jia here really learn how to talk to their children and explain them why is it dangerous to use social networking websites and what kind of information you should and should not provide online.
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