Letters to the Editor
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My bodies My Space
I am the father of a fifteen year old boy with his own MySpace site. It is, as he has shown me a wonderful electronic bulliten board for posting his personas ("Josh is just this guy, you know") his beliefs (banners from other cites decrying the Iraq War and urging racial and gay tolerance) and hooking up and communicating with his friends and friends he meets around the world.
Here is an important message for those who either don't have teenagers are are too busy making money or being concerned to actually pay attention to their children:
YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE HOW SOPHISTICATED TEENAGERS ARE!! THEY REALLY CAN TELL WHEN SOME ADULT TROLL IS HITTING ON THEM. THEY IGNORE THEM AND LAUGH AND LAUGH.
The idea that the kids on MySpace are somehow potential victims of pedophiles is beyond laughable. As a child I was warned about anybody pulling up in a car offering me candy. We as kids all knew that we'd be stupid to get in that car. Our kids are the same way on the internet, and much safer because if there is a pedophile writing on MySpace it isn't like he can get out of his car dump the candy and grab us off the street.
Those horror stories you read about aren't about some innocent being lured by some old pedophile, but about some teen looking for a way to get out of town to escape from physical or sexual abuse or just plain neglect. These are few and far between, far fewer than the adults trolling Myspace pretending they are teens looking for some adult action.
Yet to 'protect' those few children our politicians are seeking to shut off a major social and creative outlet for the other 99% of the kids on MySpace. The lesson learned will be to stifle creativity, sharing, and any trust or respect our children may have for us or our society.
Last semester my son's school board trolled MySpace searching for students talking about alcohol and drugs. When they found any student even joking about these things they were suspended from a drug and alcohol program designed to encourage they not do these things. The result? They stopped caring whether they did drugs or not. Other schools have discussed suspending any student who even talks about drugs or alcohol on MySpace. The result; kids no longer will believe in our schools or any positive message we want them to take from it.
Unless you believe it is healthy to go into your kids room and read their diary, give them a break and leave MySpace alone.
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Just another example of our pathetic public educational system
This patrolling of MySpace is analagous to traffic enforcement. If your house gets burgled, the cops take a report and don't do anything about it. But if you go 10 mph over the limit on a highway where everyone else is driving the same speed, you're a menace to society?
No, it's what we call in the software industry the "low hanging fruit." It's the easiest to pick, so that's what you go after. Rather than trying to solve real problems, like bullying, incompetent teaching, large class sizes, and one-size fits all curricula, the school administrators go after kids who post "Mr Reynolds suxors," on MySpace because it makes it look like they're doing something positive.
Really trying to help the kids is much harder, and what incentive do they have to do that? They get a government mandated handout per warm body in the desks, and they don't have to work for it, for the most part, because the kids are forced to go to the school where they're zoned. Essentially, they have a monopoly on the children in the area, and the monopoly power inevitably corrupts them.
So they go after kids who complain about the corrupt system that they benefit from. This is obviously their top priority, protect the bread and butter.
Many teachers are great people who are in it for the love of the children. I've known quite a few, myself. Administrators are another matter entirely. Their main purpose is the perpetuation of the status quo, and the vicious suppression of any who threaten it. Tune into a local school board meeting on the access channel sometime, and see if you disagree.
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Good parents read myspace
Parents need to follow the myspace pages. There you can read whose parents let them stay out all night and not care. You can see who is into drugs and stoned while doing homework. You can see who has incredible profanity in their casual vocabulary. You can see the lies exposed that cover for unsupervised parties (Oh, her parents are there, she's there, then why does so and so say they can't wait till she's back from Florida?).
Most teenagers have a polite person persona they expertly project in front of friends' parents. Through myspace you can detect more of the true persona that takes hours and hours and days and days of personal observation to gleen otherwise.
While we allow our kids unfettered internet access in general, we've banned myspace accounts and even viewing myspace. We aren't the only ones. The problem is that the kids on myspace sink to the lowest common denominator. It distorts what is truly socially acceptable. We don't do MTV in this house, we don't listen to profane misogynic rap music. We draw the line on socially acceptable behavior in our home. Self-respect and respect for others is one foundation.
I personally appreciate the schools monitoring myspace. So many parents are clueless about their kids' behaviors and the internet as well. It takes a village to raise a child and I appreciate when other adults help guide kids with proper social behavior. Teenagers tend to not want to believe their parents, they are in the necessary stage of questioning and separating from their parents. When other adults help set standards, its much easier to have the lessons stick. The consequences, however, must be appropriate and constructive (discpline means to teach!).
Sure, they may just go underground, but they are so ego-centric and oblivious about realizing we adults invented the internet and just maybe can navigate myspace. Our own kids know we are incredibly computer literate and when we say no myspace at home, it will be enforced. Meanwhile, we parents use it to help navigate permission granted to which social activities.
Greg Iles' newest novel The Turning Angel, while in the traditional sensational thriller genre, does raise some interesting questions about teenagers having too much freedom these days and how much parents don't know about their kids' lives. Myspace opens a few windows that parents need to look through.