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Youth, internet & social media: Good thing or Bad thing?

What's the impact on youth of their access to internet/social media

  • Benefits greatly outweigh the downsides of harmful behavior/material

    Votes: 9 39.1%

  • Benefits somewhat outweigh downsides.

    Votes: 2 8.7%

  • Mixed; neither good nor bad overall

    Votes: 6 26.1%

  • Downsides of harmful behavior/material outweigh benefits

    Votes: 5 21.7%

  • Downsides of harmful behavior/material vastly outweigh benefits and something must be done.

    Votes: 1 4.3%
  • Total voters
    23
  • Poll closed .
N

Neomalthusian

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I have not researched this, so all I have is my personal experience with Facebook.com and my gut reactions to the occasional news story.

I'm not even thirty and I didn't even have a regular old cell phone until I was in college. Now I see teens, pre-teens and sometimes even young children with smart phones and mobile broadband, tablets, wireless internet on multiple devices, etc. Access to the most disturbing and inappropriate material has never been easier for kids than it is today, and this is an advent of the last several years of human history. And bullying, while it's always been normal, has never been so easy to do anonymously and from the protection of one's parents' house. In other words, kids who wouldn't have the guts to by a bully in person have many more ways to bully now that they have social media.

So. What do you think/feel is the overall impact of social media and internet on youth nowadays?

And what should parents be doing about this, if anything?


Upsetting article from CNN that inspired the post:
Bullied Canadian teen leaves behind chilling YouTube video
 
It's probably a good thing that I don't have kids anymore, because I would be viewed as the crotchety old mom who was depriving her children of all the latest in modern technology. I think that kids are becoming a bit too obsessive and neurotic, because they feel insecure if they can't instantly communicate with someone. I don't think it's good for their heads.
 
People preaching about how social media will be the downfall of our generation are no different than the people who preached about how TV would destroy the youth in the 50s and 60s.
 
I'm more concerned with poor parental guidance toward their children than I am about the effects of the Internet and social media.
 
It's both - good and bad. Depending on how it's used and why it's being used such a way.
 
Voltaire X said:
People preaching about how social media will be the downfall of our generation are no different than the people who preached about how TV would destroy the youth in the 50s and 60s.
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No different in that they're about equally correct? :) To be serious though, the difference between TV content and internet content is an apples and oranges comparison. TV is passive receipt of content, and internet is active pursuit of it, and the stuff you can see online with a few quick curious clicks of the mouse is like nothing you would ever see TV. Eventually that has to have an impact. I didn't exaggerate that "it will destroy the youth of the nation!!!"

Mycroft said:
I'm more concerned with poor parental guidance toward their children than I am about the effects of the Internet and social media.
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A fair comment, but holding poor parental guidance constant, there are likely different implications between the kid that plays outside all day with neighbor kids vs. those who have unrestricted/unmonitored internet access.

In terms of "what to do about it," it definitely falls to parents. They are losing the battle to negative influences. There have always been negative influences, but as access has blown up, our ability to manage those influences has not improved, in fact over that amount of time it's probably gotten worse.
 
some good things, some bad, but mostly I think the information age has allowed our generation to be more informed and educated than preceding generations.
 
StillBallin75 said:
some good things, some bad, but mostly I think the information age has allowed our generation to be more informed and educated than preceding generations.
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I actually have come to strongly question this. I almost think that our ease of access to this information makes us lazy and less educated. Why should we have to process, learn or memorize concepts and information, when we can just google it and hyperlink the results?

I'm sure we're becoming superhuman in some ways, but in others, lazy.
 
both good and bad .they create a virtual world and begin to believe they are really in that world....somethings must still remain special ..i cant understand the twitter users.all kinds of fast food are harmful....
 
Medusa said:
both good and bad .they create a virtual world and begin to believe they are really in that world...
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That's really rare. Not many stop being able to distinguish real world from virtual world.
 
It's neither good nor bad. As with all things, parental supervision is paramount. Monitor what your kids do online, make them aware of the potential dangers and make sure your kids trust you enough to come to you for help if they're being bullied online or off. Gradually give them more freedom as they get older, but never let your guard down. It's really not that complicated. Any good, observant parent will instantly notice if something is not right with their kid. :shrug:
 
Neomalthusian said:
I actually have come to strongly question this. I almost think that our ease of access to this information makes us lazy and less educated. Why should we have to process, learn or memorize concepts and information, when we can just google it and hyperlink the results?

I'm sure we're becoming superhuman in some ways, but in others, lazy.
Click to expand...

You'll still find that the vast majority of jobs require a person to actually know what they're doing. An engineer can google something here and there that he doesn't know, but he needs to have a very firm grasp of electrical concepts and his job.

Same for a fork-lift operator, a teacher, a police officer, a baker, etc.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
You'll still find that the vast majority of jobs require a person to actually know what they're doing. An engineer can google something here and there that he doesn't know, but he needs to have a very firm grasp of electrical concepts and his job.

Same for a fork-lift operator, a teacher, a police officer, a baker, etc.
Click to expand...

Of course, but the thread is about youth. Find any engineer, fork-lift operator, teacher, police officer or baker working in those fields today and ask them if they interacted with internet and technology in a way that even closely resembled today's youth's access to internet and social media. Like I've said, this is an advent of JUST the last several years.
 
A lot of bad, some good.
 
Neomalthusian said:
Of course, but the thread is about youth. Find any engineer, fork-lift operator, teacher, police officer or baker working in those fields today and ask them if they interacted with internet and technology in a way that even closely resembled today's youth's access to internet and social media. Like I've said, this is an advent of JUST the last several years.
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Ok, I can ask myself. I'm not that old and I grew up with the internet and computers (although of course not with EVERYTHING we have today). No amount of facebook, internet, video games, or wikipedia can replace actually knowing what you're doing in your career of choice.
 
RabidAlpaca said:
Ok, I can ask myself. I'm not that old and I grew up with the internet and computers (although of course not with EVERYTHING we have today). No amount of facebook, internet, video games, or wikipedia can replace actually knowing what you're doing in your career of choice.
Click to expand...

I agree. I think what I meant was that the accessibility of information can erode kids' motivation to need to learn and memorize a lot of things.
 
Voltaire X said:
Social media is a technological advance. If you don't like it, don't use it. It's as simple as that.
Click to expand...

For most people, it's not that simple. One does not simply decide "fk it, my kid can go online" and that's that. Why are you dropping the 'youth' part of the topic?
 
I firmly think the internet & social media are good for our daily life
 
i'll vote that the benefits greatly outweigh the downsides. humans are more interconnected than ever before. if there's a flaw in that, it's a flaw in the species, not in the communication technology.
 
Since I've already pointed out a couple of specific types of potential downsides, and we have several responses saying it's overall a good thing or a very good thing, I'd be interested in any explanation you have as to why. Being online and digitally interconnected in and of itself doesn't demonstrate what is good for youth.
 
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