Even though I am part of the group that has "Grown Up Online," this video was still shocking. It is crazy to think that these teens think that the only place that they can be themselves is when they are online. The one girl in the video who acted happy go lucky in school and was very intellegent said that the only place where she could talk about her eating disorder was online. She would go on websites to discover ways to be anorexic, and how to make things like purging less horrible. Her parents had no idea about any of her issues, only her online friends did. Another story that shocked me was the online bullying of a kid named Ryan that ended up in him taking his own life. One of the breaking points of this kids decisions was when a popular girl in school flirted with him online and then said later that she was just putting on an act, leaving him humiliated. It is hard to know how to trust someone online. The stories about girls sending naked pictures to boys they don't even know over the internet are just disgusting. It's had to imagine that these kids think that this type of behavior is ok and that it is safe. These kids find it far too easy to lie to their parents about this type of thing. As a teen, I felt like I could share mostly anything with my parents, because I had nothing to hide. I have parents that give me space, but not enough space where they wouldn't interfere if they knew something suspicious was going on with me.
Other internet worries lie in the way that students are using the internet for their education. Far too many students are relying on websites like Spark Notes to get a summary of their class readings without actually reading the books, which is totally defeating the purpose. Teachers need to find ways like to make students write essays in class to make sure that students are really doing the work without relying on these internet sites. I also think it is really important for educators to use things like turnitin.com to see if students are turning in original work. It's really kind of sad that teachers have to take all of these precautions to make sure that their students are really putting a good amount of effort into their school work.
I think that it is so important for teachers to teach their students how to be safe on the internet. It is ridiculous to think that we can ban students from things like Facebook and My Space. The main thing we need to accomplish is to find a way to get it through to students on how to use these websites with caution. Things like only adding friends on Facebook that you already know could work. This eliminates most of the worry about them being an online predator. One bad judgement could lead to something horrible that could change a student's life forever. Overall, I thought this was such an interesting video that I would reccommend to anyone interested or concerned with inappropriate internet use.
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