hexacorde
Junior Member
Posts: 10
From: Jacksonville, Florida, USA
Registered: Nov 2000
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 posted 05-21-2001 04:52 AM   
(I posted this on another category, but it annoyed me so much that I felt it needed to be said twice...)
Last night on a local newscast here in Jacksonville, Florida - there was a feature story on the "Dangers of Online Diaries."
The main idea of the story was that teenagers are now keeping journals and diaries on the internet - and if you are the parent of one of these teenagers, they might be revealing your secrets to the world!!
It was classic paranoia in the first degree. Everything from journals being a lure for internet stalkers and credit card # hackers, to a journal being an early indicator of low self-esteem, to the threat of possible embarrasment at the hands of your child!
The horror.. the horror...
Just the fact that the newscasters treated journaling like it was some sort of plague reaching across the world made me want to pack up my family and move anywhere but here...
Has anyone else noticed this type of ridiculous hysteria from the media about online writing? Or is this just a symptom of living in a city with old world/old south values?
-Dan Luft
http://www.luftworld.com/Satellite/hexnotes.htm
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Dreama
Member
Posts: 121
From: Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Registered: Mar 2000
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 posted 05-21-2001 11:21 AM
Consider it a symptom of May, IOW - Sweeps Month. Any sensational story to hype ratings when they count the most will do. If we have to see local news jackals a.) exploiting a perfectly reasonable form of expression that's just new and "different" enough to make typical nonthinking Americans worry and b.) play on most nonthinking parents of teenagers fears that horrible paedophiles are just waiting with baited breath to swoop down on little Susie or Timmy the moment that they log on, well, so be it. (So be it from their perspective, not ours.)
If it really tee'd you off and they didn't have a lot of fact to go by, I'd recommend dropping an e-mail or, if necessary, a snail mail letter to the news director of that station.
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Dreama
BlueSilver{Dot}Org * Regret Nothing, Disavow When Needed
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pzarquon
Administrator
Posts: 281
From: Honolulu, Hawaii
Registered: Feb 2000
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posted 05-21-2001 01:27 PM
I'd personally love the call letters and network of that station, hexacorde. Personally I've been wondering when that particular angle on OLJs would be seized upon - and it's about time, given the huge fuss over 'blogs now. (I'd rather it happen spontaneously, too, rather than over a Columbine-type incident, which it nearly did.)
My vote goes for sweeps week pandering, too. Everything about the Internet is suddenly evil. It's the new scourge, and one in which news directors know a huge portion of the viewership has experience with. What better way to assuage the public's insecurity about understanding a new pervasive technology than to demonize it?
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Dreama
Member
Posts: 121
From: Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Registered: Mar 2000
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posted 05-21-2001 02:35 PM
It doesn't help when you have folks with more compassion than common sense out there flaying the line about "the Internet (sic) is crawling with perverts ready to snatch the innocence away from your children!"
In the past few weeks, I've heard such drivel on no fewer than eight different radio talk shows, which drives me batty. Leading the charge seems to be Donna Rice-Hughes (remember Donna Rice, the one who ruined Gary Hart's presidential hopes? Her.) who runs some anti-porn group.
Now, the merits of being pro- or anti-porn aside, this lady has gone off the bleeding edge. I heard her say to a local host "It's not if your child will be approached by a paedophile online, it's when. It's not if your child will run into porn online, it's when. It's not if your child will receive unsolicited pornographic e-mail, it's when."
Ms. Rice-Hughes uses a different internet than I or my children do - probably AOL, which is (or was, in my experience) laden with all manner of spam and unsolicited IMs from oversexed yahoos. Clearly, I don't let my kids hang out in chat rooms, nor do they do dumb things like search on Google for "balls" when they want to know about sporting equipment. But even if I step away for a few minutes while they're online, I'm not overwhelmed with the fear that some predator is going to come after them because there is no reason for any predator to know that my kids are online. You can't stalk what you don't know exists.
Any parent with any brainpower who knows jack about using the web and e-mail knows how to safeguard oneself. Any parent with any brainpower will know how crucial it is to do so for their kids, and will discuss these things with their kids to prevent problems before they start.
My biggest problem with this rampant fearmongering is that the people who don't know anything about the "online experience" (if I may be so trite) and can't be bothered to educate themselves will merely not allow their children to enjoy the useful, educational and entertainment opportunities that are in place for them out of some misguided notion that terror will strike without warning.
News reports like the one in Jacksonville and people like Donna Rice-Hughes are making that happen every day. Making people afraid of invisible (and largely non-existent) bogeymen is a public disservice. It would be nice if these people would bother to tell people how to avoid the possible problems, instead of just running around screaming that the sky is falling because there's a rain shower.
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Dreama
BlueSilver{Dot}Org * Regret Nothing, Disavow When Needed
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