Growing Up Online Response #4

Watching “Growing Up Online” a video by PBS, at first I got the sense that technology was the greatest thing that man has ever created. It gave a way to communicate with friends, view funny videos and be open to become whoever the people wanted to be on the internet. But lately, technology has become addicting to the point where “90% of teenagers are online.” This huge number given by PBS, teenagers can’t break away from it. Because they need it 24/7 and has become their way of life. Adults mainly parents see their children online so much they really do not know what to do, they do not know how to operate the technology because they particularly didn’t grow up with it and they can’t stop the teenagers from using it so much. For example, Evan Skinner, a mother of 4 teenagers became very concern about technology and how much of her kids’ time is mainly surrounding it. She was mainly concern about their safety and asked for their password and will put it in an envelope for the sake of their privacy. The kids didn’t want to do this because their mother will eventually want to know what is up with them and keep track of what they are doing by opening up the envelope and logging on. I believe what Mrs. Skinner is doing is right because she is afraid something will happen to her kids if they are online and quite frankly she will not know what to do if something bad does happen. I see and understand clearly what this mother believes because this is the kind of thing that mothers who love their children so much will do. Most mothers learn to be protective of their children and will do anything to keep them safe even if it means to break into their Facebook or MySpace. I know this because my mom is the same way. Whenever my brother, my sister or I are on the computer, in the back of her mind she is worried about what we do on the internet and there might be a possibility where a pedophile is lurking nearby. As a family, we have watched shows like Dateline: To Catch a Predator, where they show these men trying to meet young girls and have a sexual relationship. We watch how insane and mentally disgusting these men are when they are on the computer and these men are men we commonly see everyday. These pedophiles were police officers, firefighters, dads who coach the local soccer team, etc. This shocks my mom so much that she gets apprehensive every time we are on the computer and questions us whatever we do on the computer. It became ever more shocking to me that not only are there pedophiles but cyber bullies. This father whose son was being bullied at school, taught him who to bow to use for self-defense. Later on the bullying stop but the son didn’t change and the father notice the difference because after some time the son committed suicide. It devastated him and he wanted to know what caused his son to kill himself. He soon found out through his son’s friends and looking into his son’s computer that he was learning how to hang himself by this person he met online. Sometimes technology is a bad place for teenagers and younger children because it is a place where they can make bad choices like the son committing suicide and befriending someone online that you don’t know who may be a pedophile.

Technology has greatly impacted my life. I claim that technology is a huge part of my life but because of it being a huge part of my life, it has become a bad influence.
When I first learned about technology and how people created programs like Microsoft Office, it was great. I learned about Word, Publisher, Powerpoint, and Excel. Because of these programs, it gave other people and I a chance to write essays, create presentations, tables and flyers. What I mean was that these programs that people created gave us an easier way to do work that would normally take a person more time to do.
Technology has taken a greater part of my life because people out there started to create sites like Facebook or MySpace. I use Facebook greatly because it was a way for me to communicate with my friends and family. Before, e-mail was my constant guide in communicating especially when I am talking with my cousin from the Philippines. But e-mailing for me started to become a thing of the past because it felt like waiting impatiently for a letter and because of the time zone difference that he was in. With Facebook, I can more openly talk to my friends from middle school and high school and I can chat with my cousins when they are online by instant messaging them right there on the screen.
The bad thing about Facebook, I couldn’t live without for the first couple of months after I joined. I became addicted with playing games especially a game called Bubble Pop. Whenever I could get to a computer with internet access, I went straight to playing this addicting game. I became SO addicted to a point where, if I wasn’t satisfied with my score, I would redo the game and start all over. Lately my mom is punishing us by taking the computer and hiding it from us because my brother and I are abusing our time on the computer. The only reason we bought a computer was that we use it for homework and less time on sites like Facebook and Youtube. Lately it is so hard to because all we want is to go on those sites.