Reading response 4
Growing Up Online
The January 22, 2008 FRONTLINE report, Growing Up Online investigates how technology is being understood and used by teens, and how there is more than just exposure to the internet, but a total immersion that some parents and educators see as a threat to the teen’s safety. Written and directed by Rachel Dretzen with co-director John Maggio, it is a thought provoking documentary that continues to have more relevance as time passes and the use of internet technology advances ever faster.

Social networking on Facebook or MySpace is where teens meet, share, discuss, post their lives, wants, needs, desires, or just hang out. Texting on their cell phones has replaced talking. They have had email or instant messages their entire lives, and most have never written or mailed a letter. Teens have a different perspective of the world through the internet that their parents haven’t experienced. In some cases, the parents fear what they don’t understand. Occasionally there is ample reason for concern.

A young teen girl, in talking about internet content says, “like, if I were a parent and I saw the things, I would cry I think”. They talk about the anonymity of the internet where they can be a real person, or “totally 100% me online”. Others seek the release in a different persona, such as the Goth alter-ego of “Autumn Edows” assumed by 14 year old Jessica Hunter. Autumn Edows became famous online for the sometimes seductive pictures that were definitely art, but this was a 14 year old girl in an uncontrolled wide open world where nobody is in charge. How can a society know where to draw the lines to protect a young teen girl? When the school principal found out, he contacted her parents and her mother stood over her as she deleted every picture from her computer. Her father explained that somebody “out there” could use these pictures, change them, change the context, and this was bad. The parent’s belief that their daughter should fear somebody on the internet changing her pictures or changing the context caused a deep scar when “Autumn” was erased. A part of their daughter was erased, invalidated. Jessica was more deeply scarred by the denial of a real part of herself in the destruction of her artistic expression than she would have been by the possible misuse of her pictures by another person.

An interesting observation comes from C.J. Pascoe PhD with the University of California, Berkeley’s Digital Youth Research Project. She says, “In a way the social networking sites are this digital representation of what we think of as adolescence. So what teens are doing is going around and trying on these different identities, I’m a Goth, I’m a punk rocker, I’m a surfer, or this, or that, and the internet has allowed them to display that identity in a very succinct way.”

Identity is formed, discovered, reformed, tested, and eventually accepted through the teen years. Parents can hope that a stable foundation is already there, and their son or daughter knows that support is there if needed. Every parent was once a teen, and even though technology has changed the challenges of being a teen remain the same.

A primary character in the documentary is Evan Skinner, a mother with a son who is a senior in high school. She complains that she doesn’t have her son’s password, and has the family computer in the living room where she can keep a watch on her children as they’re using it. She comments that she sees her son quickly close a screen as she glances over, implying something sinister must be happening. As the president of her son’s PTO she forwarded a Facebook video to other parents of a concert some of the students attended. Another parent responded, “are you naïve?” She has sent a constant message of no trust. Her son is receiving a clear message saying, “I am not trustworthy.” The result of this unrealistic fear of the internet on their relationship is revealed in her closing remarks, “he has pretty much cut off his family in his life”, and, “I would say the loss of sharing, open communication is the single most painful part of being a parent for me.”

In our rapidly evolving culture, technology has been, and is totally integrated in the lives of teens. There are potential risks in technology and they cannot be constantly supervised. With strong morals, ethics, and principles there is little chance true harm can occur. With a heartfelt understanding that their parent will be there if needed, they are given freedom to explore the world with less fear.

The narrator’s voiceover gives some clarity to the issue, “It’s been said that the internet has created the greatest generation gap since the creation of rock-n-roll.” We’ve survived that crisis for 50 years now.

It will eventually be commonly accepted that the positive aspects of social networking easily outweigh the negative. Putting the words out there on the internet is liberating to some adolescents. The anonymity allows them the freedom to freely express themselves when they sometimes feel they have nowhere else to go. Just letting the emotions be put into words is often enough to ease the angst. Someday we may see studies showing the therapeutic value of anonymous internet chats or the freedom of liberating a hidden persona.