Growing Up Online

2009-09-29T16:26:00.000-07:00

Would you consider the computer a luxury? I was born and grew up in a country where the computer was an expensive luxury and where it had barely been introduced. The people who owed a computer did not even have Internet access. Only at around 2002 it became personal. If people from my country watched this video they would be at a disbelief of the effects of the computer and the Internet. I myself was shocked at the real-life stories on the video. It is unbelievable that such an innocent machine could have that effect on a person. The Internet is having a relatively bad impact on teens because, it is causing them to stay indoors for long periods of time without being active and they are not interacting with their own age group face to face or with their parents.

The Internet has created a big generation gap. Social networking sites, instant messaging programs, e-mail and others are part of what is causing this big generation gap. Interacting with your friends, chatting with them, playing games with them etc. is what almost every teenager wants. The Internet makes all of these options available in one place with the click of a button and it's what teens are drawn into. The ease with which teens can do all these things without even getting out of bed is a huge factor of why this generation is what it is. This ease of things however causes other problems for teens which they do not realize. Since they are always staying in, they are not physically and mentally active, they also have easy access to food. This could also be a reason why obesity is so high in the US and not in developing countries. One might suggest that the fast and many interactions that teens have with their friends online makes for stimulating and productive conversations as opposed to face to face talk. On the other hand that is not the case because doing so teens are depriving themselves of crucial communication and verbal skills needed for their future lives and their future careers. These however are long term and lasting problems.

The Internet causes many other real-time implications like shown in the "Growing Up Online" video. In the online communities that teens participate there's bound to be a video, picture, message, or comment that might be misleading to someone. Pictures and e-mails, do not carry the same accent and emotion that a face to face interaction and conversation do. Also, different people perceive content online differently, so when a teen or anyone is posting something online they can and probably expect different outlooks on it. This can lead to misunderstandings, arguments and fights. Some teens develop their own identity or an identity that they prefer online. Such as that is the game "Second Life". This is possible on the Internet because no one can really judge you there and there's no one who is monitoring it. This is also bad for the emotional health of teens because they are provided with a fake sense of security online. As soon as they go back to their outside, normal lives they can experience emotional buildup. The Internet doesn't just carry friends' of teens but also unwanted people with bad intentions. Sexual predators are a huge factor for the concern of parents of their children growing up online. Most teens however understand and act upon these situations but that does not make the online world safer.

The Internet in general is a very powerful tool. One used by the Internet impresario of Obama's presidential campaign. It was a powerful player on Obama's presidential run as stated in the "How Obama Did It" article. His people were able to reach a wide audience that they would not have been able to without the Internet. Mostly through strategic videos, this aspect of the campaign had a huge positive output and it shows how powerful the Internet can be.

Personally I think that this generation gap is a cultural thing. If you ask a teen from my country to take away his soccer ball or his computer forever he would let you take away his computer because it is the culture of the place where they grew up that allows them to do that. The cultural aspect of it is something that I can not explain but it is something to be looked at. In my opinion this is a big problem in the US that cannot be pushed to be resolved and it will probably solve itself.