Growing Up Online (TU)

Reading Response #4

Growing up online is basically about how this years generation is growing up with the internet and all the addictions that are out there. The video goes between several students that all have the internet a big part of there lives. What people are saying the internet is another way to be sexually harassed or even bullied that doesn’t happen at school. One kid that was bullied was not just bullied at school, but was at home when he went online. The kids that were doing actually made the young boy start believing that he was a loser and that he was worthless. The kids name was Ryan Halligan and in 2003 he committed suicide by hanging himself. The father couldn’t figure out why he killed himself, but he went to his sons computer and found the answer. Ryan was being Cyber Bullied and had a folder on the computer that was the right way to kill yourself. The folder was a test that you take to figure out how to kill yourself. For Ryan, it was to hang himself. The test also taught them how to commit the suicide by teaching them how to tie the hangman’s noose.
Rachel Dretzin and John Maggio brought an important idea out when they made this video. The idea was that kids are not just gonning to let their parents to get into the personal information they have posted on sites like Facebook or Myspace. What I mean by that is the kids don’t want their mom or dad to see who their friends are or what they are sending to people. It is like the code of teenagers. NEVER LET YOUR PARENTS KNOW!
My life has been changed by the internet due to the fact that most English classes need the internet. I have been taking English classes and as far back as I remember is that the internet is needed for certain reasons. Reasons like finding books to read online or posting your homework to a blog. In my English class know we have the “moodle.” The moodle is where we find our homework or important things we covered during class. The internet has changed my life also that by one click of a button your looking at a site in which your topic is on and then in the next click you are in a completely different topic. That is just one click of a button. An example of that is Youtube. Lets say I’m watching a video on Most Amazing Goalie Saves. I watch that video and when its done I see on the side panel the title. Most Amazing Goals. And so on. Pretty soon I am away from the topic of goalies but to a different group. Another example of how it affects me is that is if I want I can see the weather forecast of Bellingham, but not just Bellingham. If I wanted to I could see the forecast for Belfast, Ireland, or Sydney Australia. The world is not like it once was.