Post by TomBeasley on Aug 3, 2009 7:07:20 GMT 10
The Evil *cough* World Of Teh Internetz
The internet. It is something that almost every teenager is familiar with in one way or another. In such a short time, it has become an integral part of any household and I know that I certainly couldn’t survive without my link to the world of geekdom.
Perhaps the sub-section of the internet that garners the most interest from my demographic is the social networking opportunities that emanate from the internet. From the customisation and music appeal of MySpace to the simplicity and addictiveness of Twitter, all of these sites seem to cause millions of teenagers to flock to them. But why?
The simple answer is that teenagers love the idea of being friends with as many people as possible. Many schoolyard conversations centre around who has the most “friends” on these sites. Of course, this matters very little as a few friends who you connect to a lot are infinitely better in the spirit of networking than a few who hate your guts and would happily give you a slap but just want to add to their total. An unwritten rule seems to exist that says that you cannot decline a friend request from someone you know. It just feels wrong, in the same way that it feels wrong not to burn any remaining revision material after the course is over. Not that I condone that at all. COUGH!
Of course, many parties worry about the implications of meeting people from the internet. I for one reject Facebook requests from anyone I don’t know, but however have been a member on a book forum for nearly two years. On this book forum, I have made a whole bunch of awesome friends and have even met several of them in person. Guess what? None of them were anyone different to who they said they were. I’m not completely ignorant and I do know that there are many instances of predators targeting people online, as illustrated by Panorama’s One Click From Danger (bit.ly/b4cor) which, though informative, failed to mention the fact that not everyone you meet online’s main priority is to groom you into sex. I remember the aforementioned forum not being very happy at that program and several of us commenting on how Panorama had misrepresented internet communities.
It is doubtless a very important issue and something that the youth of this country need to be educated about, but it does not need to be presented in such a way as to scare children away from the net and parents away from allowing their child to access the wealth of social stimulation the internet has to offer. I suppose the message of this article is that social networking is a fantastic opportunity for children to develop social and communication skills and is a perfectly safe pastime as long as common sense is observed at all times. The internet really isn’t as scary as the media make it out to be and there aren’t evil people hiding around every corner. In fact, some of the people you meet on the internet could turn out to be the best people you ever meet.
I could literally go on for hours talking about this. If you want more information on my opinions or just want a chat with me, then follow me on Twitter and send me a message. I look forward to speaking to you all.
), but it also helps improve your ability to communicate with others. 
