So I have to write an issue-based feature story on this for Media Studies. I’ve got a good idea on how to go about this, report from my own experiences etc.

However, I also thought this might be an interesting topic to discuss, here of all places!

There are a lot of young pre-teens on here after all…What are your own experiences using DM, facebook, YouTube or other social media sites? Do you think you’ve got a slight addiction (I think I do XD) – well, I certainly really enjoy hopping on these two sites daily to catch up, be silly, feed my love of WoT and keep in contact with friends since DM has become such a big part of my life.

Are video games considered social media? How far does this addiction go? Do you think our society is suffering from teenagers preferring to stay home and do everything online?

If you’re not a teenager anymore, what do you think about our young obsession with the internet? I’d love to gather people’s opinions and thoughts on this, I’ve been pondering on this a big deal and am now burning with curiousity after coming up with all sorts of related questions! XD

 

I think social media has had a big impact on my life at least. I AM very much an outdoors gal, always been, practically grew up in the forest and on horseback. I live way out in the wop-wops, study with correspondence, and therefore can’t socialize as much as I would like – which became a tough problem for me especially in these mid-late teen years. My parents aren’t keen on phones, online games or conversation applications either.

But I got a taste of ‘civilisation’ staying with my grandparents in big German cities for half a year… and some aspects of coming back for 4 more years leaving all that behind were not particularly that attractive. So when I discovered DM (and facebook just a little before that), it was so easy to at least chat with friends/others my age or with similar interests, over the net. And since then it’s become an everyday thing, and I miss it when I do go away from it for a few days. Okay I don’t foam at the mouth or get angry/have tantrums but I do find it addictive because it’s so fun. (Mom and Dad are convinced I am addicted). It’s definitely changed my view of things, I’ve learnt a lot of lessons from the friends I’ve made on here – heck we even discuss a lot of the stuffs on DM I am learning in history and other school stuff! So I’m confident it isn’t at all that bad or useless or whatever I am told it is when I’m on for several hours. >.>

I have however heard scary stories about what being taken away from this can do to young people, or how they react at least. Okay I’d be angry if I was forcefully banned for a long amount of time, but yeah… I could still travel to the towns to stay with friends. Or do whatever would be necessary to not go insane from only talking to horses :P But I WOULD go socialize no matter what it would take. What has horrified me is that teens who do live in an environment with plenty of socializing opportunities react crazily if they’re being forbidden the internet or phones or whatever.

Are we aware that this unstoppable trend/hobby/recreation, whatever you wanna call it – addiction even! – is making us lose important social skills? Is that a really sad sign of our society disintegrating?

I have a lot more ramblings on this but I think I’ll let some of you get a word in and in the meantime write them down on a separate doc for my feature project XD Before I drift off into related thoughts and exhaust y’all with SO MANY QUESTIONS… Call it a philosophical debate if you will

I live on the internet.

 

 

Is that positive or negative?

*chortle*

 

...it's a life style I guess... XD

 

Could you 'move house' and live without it if it came to it? :P

you might want to consider the effect of parents on teens re social media

 

for example I have a 15 and almost 14 yr old. They do NOT have email addresses and are not allowed on FB until they have turned 16. This is because they are not totally computer smart and i dont trust them to not add a bunch of strangers. I also refuse to fix the computers every time they dont do what i have told them TIME after Time after Time and get viruses. It annoys my youngest. my oldest not so much.

 

I do let them on the net but i keep an eye on what they are doing if they want to join a site they have to convince me and use my email to do it.

 

Am i over mean??

you might want to consider the effect of parents on teens re social media

 

for example I have a 15 and almost 14 yr old. They do NOT have email addresses and are not allowed on FB until they have turned 16. This is because they are not totally computer smart and i dont trust them to not add a bunch of strangers. I also refuse to fix the computers every time they dont do what i have told them TIME after Time after Time and get viruses. It annoys my youngest. my oldest not so much.

 

I do let them on the net but i keep an eye on what they are doing if they want to join a site they have to convince me and use my email to do it.

 

Am i over mean??

 

immho:

Email addresses: That's like telling them they can't have a mailing address. I know I used an email address for things as simple as asking teachers questions

Viruses: Yep, that's their own bloody fault.

Facebook: Eh, your decision. I know my parents had just made me friend them and made sure they had my password.

Seems to me a lot of younger people nowadays in more urban areas have almost no social skills, and I would blame part of that on not having to interact with other people face to face as much anymore because you can just drop someone a brief message on some social site or text them and not be bothered to see them. Where I live it is not such a problem - it is a rural area, not very populated, where people like to interact with each other and most people will limit their children's phone/internet access (though it is somewhat superfluous because the children grow up with a lot of face-to-face interactions and community functions).

 

But people who pass through from elsewhere, or when I go to a more urban place, a lot of times, among the adolescents and young adults, they have trouble holding or are uncomfortable with eye contact, sometimes they can't carry a conversation too well, and they have POOR confrontational skills, it is not even funny - when someone approaches them in anger, a lot of times they will act bewildered instead of trying to extricate themselves through reasoning or getting confrontational themselves. I would think they just were let out of an isolated cage somewhere rather than they have been part of any society. I do not know what sort of effects it would have on cognitive and literary skills, but I know socially, a lot of younger people seem to only know how to successfully interact in the virtual world, not the real one.

 

Mostly it is the parent's fault though, not technology, because they decide to just throw the kid on these gadgets rather than interacting with them much (or they decide to interact with them through the gadgets to, so...). Whatever the case, I would rather not have my son get addicted to such things or develop poor social behaviour, so me and his mother almost never let him play video games, and when he is old enough to actually competently use a computer, we would only let him use it for research and emailing - no social sites or computer games until he is 17 so he can keep his head firmly in reality and consequence .

I think people scream about kids being on the internet "too much" way too much. The argument "when I was young I never..." saddens me since people view the special cases and the negative and then are unwilling to move forward, choosing not to reaize that there are good things being done everyday through technology. Thing like social media have opened up so many new concepts which engulf today's society for the BETTER and is undoubtedly a movement in the right direction and in my opinion, the only direction. I can elaborate if you want on its importance and the importance of technology in general but I'm just stating my opinion at the moment.

Mostly it is the parent's fault though, not technology, because they decide to just throw the kid on these gadgets rather than interacting with them much (or they decide to interact with them through the gadgets to, so...).

 

The bolded part.

well my parents are not technologically savvy at all, my dad seems to now how to work through a web browser for webmail and internet banking, but that's it, my mom is useless at technology of all kinds. And that works great for me because I've never really had my parents too interested in what I do, they leave me to my own devices and I like to think I've turned out OK. So yeah, my parents don't know my passwords (though I know my dad's :P), what sites I'm on and if I wanted I could probably conceal or distort any information I didn't want them to see, but I've had no reason to so far

 

as for basic development and communication, my school has a laptop program and there's a whole load of people who play games on them or watch series or movies or whatever, and that's fine, I do it too, just the volumes. So yes there are people who use it as a procrastination tool, but if those laptops weren't there they'd just find other ways to waste their time, the laptops are really a means to an end, the motivation to distance yourself from what you have to do exists nevertheless.

 

on top of that I think DM has actually helped with my communication abilities, facebook not so much, but I don't use it much

Interesting topic, Nya!

 

When I was in Jr. highschool, the internet was just starting to become more widespread here. (around 96-97), and it was very exciting. We got our own email addresses, and the AOL instant messenger thingy made it a rush to go home, sign online and see which of your friends were online to chat also. Everyone from nerds to cool kids had it, and in my opinion, it somewhat leveled out social groups or "cliques" in my area. Some people played games online, some just chatted, some used it to help teach themselves guitar (me), but everyone was kinda in the same spot.

It's changed these days, however, as all things do. Cell phones weren't widely available until after high school for me. (2001), and I honestly believe that's when more started changing. Cell phones led to the feeling that people wanted to be available to others constantly. Immediately. Wherever they were. Being online, you still had to be at home, and if you wanted to see friends you still had to be in person.

Cell phones introduced text messaging, for me the single biggest change of the era. Now, you can literally carry on conversations all day, every day, without ever actually seeing someone. It's like a real-time pen pal. You check them when you want, respond when you want, and since you can think of your answer before saying it, it tends to change how some people portray themselves.

Then comes Myspace, and subsequently Facebook. Facebook is really just a cleaner, less personalized version of Myspace, after all (which I'm grateful for), but I honestly don't think social networking, including Facebook, would be what it is without myspace. Before Myspace, you had to know code to do things on the internet. You want a webpage? Grab a Geocities or Angelfire account, and read what you can on HTML. Myspace did away with that, and gave people a chance to really be part of the internet without doing all the work. The social aspect was second to the ability to express yourself online. In that regard, it was great. However, with the social aspect came exposure to a lot of bad things. Predators, sexualizing youth, pictures of raves and parties, and the drugs that come with them. It gave people who would never consider such activities a real curiosity towards them, and probably did some harm. Still, not horrible, as these things might've happened anyway.

Facebook came along and expanded right as cell phones and such allowed it to be everywhere with you. Whether you have an account with one picture, a few updates and 10 friends, or 500+ friends, 300+ pictures and you update constantly, you've got Facebook. It also integrates with Twitter, Linkdin, and all the rest, almost eradicating the need to be somewhere in person.

To this end, I say it's somewhat harmful to youth, but equally so to adults. If you can see pictures of your friend's children in Ohio, your family's vacation in New Zealand and your cousin's graduation all online, why bother attending such things, or seeing those people in person? Half the fun in life used to be seeing people and telling them stories... things you've done, times in life... that's gone now, as people literally just say "check my facebook update!" That hurts all mankind a little, I say.

Still there are positives. It's still fun, exciting, and gives us the chance to meet people we'd never have been able to 20 years ago. (My Dragonmount friends here, for example)

So, what's it really? It's trading some of the old ways we used to commune with humanity into some new ones. Some aspects are great, some could be dangerous or harmful. But in the end, life is truly about balance. It's great to be online, Nya, but it's greater to do it and still go enjoy your horsies and your beautiful country/world. I love being online, then going and playing live music on the weekends, or tossing a football, or just seeing friends.

Because the moment we stop living out there, we'll stop having things to even post on Facebook :)

I think people scream about kids being on the internet "too much" way too much. The argument "when I was young I never..." saddens me since people view the special cases and the negative and then are unwilling to move forward, choosing not to reaize that there are good things being done everyday through technology. Thing like social media have opened up so many new concepts which engulf today's society for the BETTER and is undoubtedly a movement in the right direction and in my opinion, the only direction. I can elaborate if you want on its importance and the importance of technology in general but I'm just stating my opinion at the moment.

Those people's main complaint is not technology, even if they use that term ambigously - they are complaining about entertainment media, whether it is social sites, mmorpgs, television, etc., that they think is stinting social development or doing some other negative thing to children. Social media is great for people far apart to communicate with each other with ease, whether for business or for personal matters, but it does not seem to be doing anything for anyone when you use it to text someone who lives right next door to you. And television has never made anyone more intelligent, not unless you watch news or documentaries, something informative, but that is not exactly what most people like to watch on it. But like I said, it is the fault of bad parenting, not teaching children how to be responsible or use it with restraint, not technology itself. Though have to wonder what the children of the socially-defunct children will be like.

I think people scream about kids being on the internet "too much" way too much. The argument "when I was young I never..." saddens me since people view the special cases and the negative and then are unwilling to move forward, choosing not to reaize that there are good things being done everyday through technology. Thing like social media have opened up so many new concepts which engulf today's society for the BETTER and is undoubtedly a movement in the right direction and in my opinion, the only direction. I can elaborate if you want on its importance and the importance of technology in general but I'm just stating my opinion at the moment.

Those people's main complaint is not technology, even if they use that term ambigously - they are complaining about entertainment media, whether it is social sites, mmorpgs, television, etc., that they think is stinting social development or doing some other negative thing to children. Social media is great for people far apart to communicate with each other with ease, whether for business or for personal matters, but it does not seem to be doing anything for anyone when you use it to text someone who lives right next door to you. And television has never made anyone more intelligent, not unless you watch news or documentaries, something informative, but that is not exactly what most people like to watch on it. But like I said, it is the fault of bad parenting, not teaching children how to be responsible or use it with restraint, not technology itself. Though have to wonder what the children of the socially-defunct children will be like.

 

You're right I misunderstood. I had just been reading an article about how it would be beneficial to remove certain things like this from society and I was just absent minded-ly shaking my head as I wrote. I 100% agree about the bad parenting though. I'm a firm believer that education is the key to fixing up society and how it's therefore down to the parents to educate their own kids and teach them values and responsibility. Whoopsie.

 

And, our society is not disintegrating

I think people scream about kids being on the internet "too much" way too much. The argument "when I was young I never..." saddens me since people view the special cases and the negative and then are unwilling to move forward, choosing not to reaize that there are good things being done everyday through technology. Thing like social media have opened up so many new concepts which engulf today's society for the BETTER and is undoubtedly a movement in the right direction and in my opinion, the only direction. I can elaborate if you want on its importance and the importance of technology in general but I'm just stating my opinion at the moment.

Those people's main complaint is not technology, even if they use that term ambigously - they are complaining about entertainment media, whether it is social sites, mmorpgs, television, etc., that they think is stinting social development or doing some other negative thing to children. Social media is great for people far apart to communicate with each other with ease, whether for business or for personal matters, but it does not seem to be doing anything for anyone when you use it to text someone who lives right next door to you. And television has never made anyone more intelligent, not unless you watch news or documentaries, something informative, but that is not exactly what most people like to watch on it. But like I said, it is the fault of bad parenting, not teaching children how to be responsible or use it with restraint, not technology itself. Though have to wonder what the children of the socially-defunct children will be like.

 

You're right I misunderstood. I had just been reading an article about how it would be beneficial to remove certain things like this from society and I was just absent minded-ly shaking my head as I wrote. I 100% agree about the bad parenting though. I'm a firm believer that education is the key to fixing up society and how it's therefore down to the parents to educate their own kids and teach them values and responsibility. Whoopsie.

 

And, our society is not disintegrating

 

I never said modern society is disintegrating - I in fact think it is becoming more stable because most modern societies require an infantile dependency on modern institutions or a docile acceptance to multiple intrusive rules, and since people seem to becoming more childish in what I would call the "wrong" ways (because I think there are some admirable traits of children) and less independent-minded, that is ideal for a stable civilization today. And I sure do hate stability .

I think people scream about kids being on the internet "too much" way too much. The argument "when I was young I never..." saddens me since people view the special cases and the negative and then are unwilling to move forward, choosing not to reaize that there are good things being done everyday through technology. Thing like social media have opened up so many new concepts which engulf today's society for the BETTER and is undoubtedly a movement in the right direction and in my opinion, the only direction. I can elaborate if you want on its importance and the importance of technology in general but I'm just stating my opinion at the moment.

Those people's main complaint is not technology, even if they use that term ambigously - they are complaining about entertainment media, whether it is social sites, mmorpgs, television, etc., that they think is stinting social development or doing some other negative thing to children. Social media is great for people far apart to communicate with each other with ease, whether for business or for personal matters, but it does not seem to be doing anything for anyone when you use it to text someone who lives right next door to you. And television has never made anyone more intelligent, not unless you watch news or documentaries, something informative, but that is not exactly what most people like to watch on it. But like I said, it is the fault of bad parenting, not teaching children how to be responsible or use it with restraint, not technology itself. Though have to wonder what the children of the socially-defunct children will be like.

 

You're right I misunderstood. I had just been reading an article about how it would be beneficial to remove certain things like this from society and I was just absent minded-ly shaking my head as I wrote. I 100% agree about the bad parenting though. I'm a firm believer that education is the key to fixing up society and how it's therefore down to the parents to educate their own kids and teach them values and responsibility. Whoopsie.

 

And, our society is not disintegrating

 

I never said modern society is disintegrating - I in fact think it is becoming more stable because most modern societies require an infantile dependency on modern institutions or a docile acceptance to multiple intrusive rules, and since people seem to becoming more childish in what I would call the "wrong" ways (because I think there are some admirable traits of children) and less independent-minded, that is ideal for a stable civilization today. And I sure do hate stability .

 

I was talking to Nya about our society disintegrating mate.

 

Is that a really sad sign of our society disintegrating?

 

:P

And, our society is not disintegrating

 

give us time, we'll get there

From my own experience...as someone who pretty much grew up when internet was getting big, I've had mixed experiences with it.

 

My late grandfather's computer was sitting in a closet in my house. I decided one day to hook it up (this was around 2000 or so). From then on, I pretty much had a computer all to myself. My father had one at home for work things (we weren't allowed to use it) and we had a "family computer" downstairs, but I rarely used it. This computer was mine. And my parents had absolutely no idea what I was doing or who I was chatting with, etc. Had they known and/or cared, I'm pretty sure I would have never been allowed on a computer again.

 

Of course, I never did anything too outrageous, but I certainly talked to random people I didn't know. People I should not have been talking to. Obviously, I didn't do things too silly like giving them our phone number or telling them where I lived...but by the time I was in the 6th grade (11-12 years old), I had "friends" on AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) that I had no idea who they were. Not to get into too many details, but what I did was just short of being extremely dangerously stupid. And you can bet anything that I will not be so lax when I have kids of my own.

 

On both the good and bad side, as I got older and spent more time on the internet (I RPed on a "serious" Harry Potter RPG site, Facebook, etc. all the way to me joining Dragonmount as a 20-year-old about a year and a half ago), I ended up meeting more people. Some of those, I ended up meeting in person. Hell, I'm even marrying someone I met online...Ed and I met in a Google+ hangout of old DMers. From growing up essentially talking to strangers, it made the concept of "stranger" not that scary. Fortunately for me, I didn't suffer for my lack of fear, but my lack of fear was both dangerous and immature.

 

Of course, I should also mention that I always had many RL friends, too. This whole internet side of my life always coexisted with playing soccer year-round, racing motocross, playing outside with my friends, etc. I didn't need social media for interaction - I moreorless enjoyed the attention from it. On that note, while I don't blame my parents for my decisions, various unfortunate events left me in a state where my parents and I had little-to-zero interaction from 10-years-old forward. I would say that this definitely contributed to my infatuation with being online, chatting with random people.

 

But that's just my two cents...or four.

Well I'm thirteen an m parents have added multiple firewalls restricting stupid stuff. Like google wikipedia and any social media sites. Which I don't use. But I was able to get past them an meh. But it doesn't affect me much at all seein as I I don't really care to use it other than DM and this is educational. :nodnod

But even on here I'm quite responsible and only TMD has an aliased email that I use rarely an have no personal info on. Overall I'd say in fairly responsible but my parents are quite restricting.

the kids dont really need an email address they see their friends at school they have phones with a plan that allows them to text A LOT! and call people for free. So they just dont need it.

 

As for interacting with people and learning to deal with them...well for one my kids got bullied a lot that teaches you a lot about how to handle pressure and confrontation. then theres my family BELIEVE me with my family if you dont learn to interact you spend a lot of time hiding under your bed!

Thanks for the awesome thoughts everyone! I've started working on replying but seeing as I'm totally exhausted mentally atm that'll have to wait for tomorrow maybe :P

Lol Nya.

 

@Dice for me personally I use my email mostly for school. For projects and other personal assignments that I'll email myself so i can have it at home and at school.