It's no question that for nearly any area of interest, there are not one but many relevant blogs. The blogging phenomenon has moved to cover everything from business to shoes, offering wider and wider ranges for increasingly larger audiences. And because the large audience of internet viewers is also hitting at younger and younger ages, children and young teenagers are introduced to both the benefits and harms of such internet content.
In some ways, it is advantageous for our technological enhancements to be available to children, as they are learning for the first times in their lives how to seek information and fulfil specific tasks. I know that if I had known about Wikipedia or even search engines like Google when I was in middle and lower school, I would have been much more fortunate.
Now the downfalls. Certain blog sites or blog-type sites have developed in terms of their features and functions, as well as their accessibility to wider age ranges. But when certain sites follow this pattern, the results can sometimes be innappropriate and precocious for younger children. For instance, the younger generation that has started using websites like Myspace and Livejournal has more and more frequently portrayed content that, frankly, disturbs me. Young girls particularly have been portraying themselves sexually and suggestively in ways that I am thankful I was not exposed to at that age.
I realize there are features that help to censor things like this, but I just wanted to bring up the negative aspects of such internet "advancements." I suppose that the websites and parents are working to ensure the safety of their children, but I think we still need to be concious of the dangers that put children at risk.
This is a good point. Young people tend to be the first to pick up new technologies, and this scares their parents, who don't know enough to check up on or trust their children. Some of this is a case of overprotective parenting, but their fear seems to be legitimized by cases of child abduction that originate with online conversations. Even such cases aside, you bring up the point of children's simple, uncensored exposure. While Hillary runs around trying to clean up video games, children can find FAR worse things online with much less parental control. Since the birth of AOL, their parental control settings have been a major selling point. Granted, this wasn't enough to save AOL from eternal damnation due to overall suckiness.
Just quickly... I understand that a lot goes on online that isn't "kosher" or what we hope goes on... But, I disagree that the internet is to blame for any decisions that young girls make about their appearance and sexuality.
It's quite a thing to have the ability to post almost anything you want online knowing that no one can sensor you. Maybe things we post are not pleasing to others, but I don't agree it's anyone's business to tell someone what they can say on their blog or myspace page.
There's always something that "the parents" won't want kids to be doing. As far as "disturbing" content online goes, there seems to be a much smaller link between people who are involved with pornography and sexual offenses than you'd think. I don't think anyone is at more risk now than they ever were.
I view it as a "chicken and egg" type quandry...like, are the children/parents to blame for abusing the availabilities technology has given them, or is technology responsible for inspiring the ideas by introducing so much freedom?
But I do agree that it's no one's business to control how people run their own blogs (for better or for worse) and it's true that there are far worse areas on the internet. The only thing that worries me is that children could become more sexually exploited online in blog-type forums such as myspace/livejournal/other recent developments, because they are more personal and visually revealing than programs in the past have been, such as chatrooms. This is what makes me think that children could be more at risk.
If myspace and livejournal are the worst thing kids encounter on the internet, then the word is alright. Blogs are just words and ideas, and myspace is just a bunch of pictures and words. Parents can just block these sites if they are really too bad for children, but common. Kids won't use myspace until they hit at least 10-12 and then probably not seriously. I am also all for letting kids get themselves messed up if parents don't watch after them; its kind of like what bad parents deserve.
That was kinda harsh wasn't it.