After reading chapter 10 in Rodman it would seem as though Social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace have nearly replaced social interaction for many of today’s kids. Although many kids go out and have friends, a good number of children today use myspace as an increasingly popular form of communications, seemingly replacing phone conversations and actual face to face interaction. Much of today’s youth will spend hours in front of a computer screen “talking” to their friends, online gaming, going on myspace, etc.
To me, there are a few problems with kids social networking as a form of interaction. One of them is the constant marking they’re exposed to. On Myspace for instance there are constant advertisements for everything from soap to bands with new CD’s coming out. The increased number of adds with pretty girls and big muscular guys isn’t good for an insecure middle-school kid who feels he or she is incredibly awkward.
Another problem is the people on the networking sites who aren’t on it with benign intentions. The sexual predators who use Myspace and other social sites and a tool rather than a form of entertainment. Kids today are increasingly unsafe online because of this demographic of pedophiles that have found a way in which to communicate with children on a medium that is rarely policed by parents.
And some children today rarely go out to make any social interaction at all, staying inside and chatting online with friends they’ve never met, whom they assume are their peers. This lack of social interaction is bad for kids as they grow older and are actually expected to deal with real face to face people on a daily basis. Social interaction is part of being human, and for many the internet is artificially replacing that.
The internet is a wealth of information and it’s benefits severely outweigh its negative aspects, however those negative aspects have to be examined and countered by parents. Social networking is great when it’s done in moderation and it’s done safely. Some children lose grip in reality and become their online persona, making them socially awkward. This is where parents should step in.
4 comments:
Parents should step in when the concept of socializing online epitomizes the child's development, but I feel that children who are exposed early on enough with a steady circle of friends (and with a healthy relationship with their parents) don't really have this problem, let alone with advertisements (as most of them require you to actively click on them to delve into the hard information; otherwise, as you mentioned, the visuals most usually point to what may be considered trendy and up with the status-quo).
It is a pretty concerning state knowing that the new hang-out is a simple AIM chat session, aside from the issue of people getting fatter, their minds perhaps narrower (spelling and grammar growing dimmer as we know it).
As a matter of personal experience on the positives, online socializing (particularly in discussion forums) really opened my ability to express and study my points from an argumentative perspective. While I still do this far better in writing than I do orally, between my speech patterns of early highschool and prior to my senior year, I've made leaps and bounds (especially with making wise-ass comments) whereas I used to be border-line awkward and shy. Conveying my feelings has inversely gotten better as a result of this "introverted" method of socializing.
Strangely, my folks didn't know jack about what I was doing on the computer. As far they were concerned, the only things in existence were email and google.
Social networking sites definitely give children more interactions online and less interactions in reality. I think this is not only a problem for kids, but also for college students. There are some people who have so many friends like 500 on Facebook and Myspace. My question is they are really friends or almost strangers. Does having so many friends mean a person is popular? It seems to me that the definition of friends has been getting weak because of social net workings. If you talk online, you can tell a lie and pretend to be a different person; I do not think it is a real friendship.
As far as online advertisement, I think American websites have annoying pop-up advertisemnts saying like "You won a ipod. Regsiter now!"
It is a huge concern that people are replacing social interaction with the Internet. While it is common for kids to learn how to safely use the Internet, there are still those who may have fallen prey to Myspace predators or hoaxes. One example is of the 13 year old girl who committed suicide after a Myspace hoax. The "boy" that was sourced for the instigator of the suicide actually turned out to be another girl at school's mother. It's scary to think that something that happened on the Internet, that seemed like a "real" part of this girl's life, resulted in such a tragedy. It's probably impossible to deny that our world is going online, so it's more important than ever for parents to teach their kids how to use the Internet safely and to keep them in tune with reality.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,312018,00.html
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