Lighting Up One's Life!!

Well!! This article certainly lit up (or is that lighted up) this forum. Hmmm- where to start. First about children and cyberspace. What I see in my community, with my children, is that they e-mail many of the friends they will see in school the very next day. That sex, cursing and social intrigues can dominate their telegraphic discussions (I think writing sentences in cyberspace is illegal until 21 years old!) I suspect too, that it offers some valuable 'socialization' practice (esp in middle school) for girls talking to boys and vice versa. I also have no doubt, that the internet has eliminated the need to go into a store and buy an Atlantic Monthly along with a Playboy. I can just hear the conversations in the middle school and high school hallways about how to get into which website to see such and such a picture!

I suspect that just as with other media, the violence, the sex and the crime of cyberspace's influence on the young people will take up much space in newspapers and magazines. Our culture's media and I guess our population is quite addicted to everything heinous and negative in the world. Just as with violence, blood and sex in movies, the vast majority of young people will not become 'perverted' by it. Will that small percentage of kids become more disturbed or more sociopathic because of it- yes. Is the same true for cyberspace- yes. Will the same people react as if all children and adolescents are being tainted or made mentally ill because of it- yes. I remember when Dungeons and Dragons (a game that some kids seemed to get addicted to), was being blamed for multiple suicides and dangerously preoccupying children's lives. Are there select populations of kids we do have to watch out for and monitor more closely- yes, of course. Will the same child who perhaps watched 90 hours of TV a week now spent that amount of time on-line- sure.

That so many people lack a sense of community and a connectedness to their communities is a serious problem. That perhaps the internet may turn out to be a first step to overcoming this may also turn out to be true- especially as the visual and aural modalities are added to the purely 'reading' modality.

I too can attest to the 'newbie' effect!! I thought this was the greatest thing since apple pie. I remember the same feelings as when I got my first electric trains as a young boy- I couldn't wait to get home to play with them! Same thing happened with me and the internet. It takes some practice, in a way, to learn how to integrate this with the rest of your life. Again, I strongly suspect that for most of us having fairly normal mental and emotional stability, that over time there is a kind of self-regulation which begins. When my wife or children begin to complain that I am becoming too unavailable, I respond. If my marriage or relationship with my children were poor, then of course, the internet provides a ready excuse to withdraw even further. I'm sure that the media will loudly report that too! "Internet contributing to divorce rate".

Well, I too have to await the arrival of my American Psycholgist to read about this research, but I have no doubt that lots of interacting variables went uninspected, and will make interpreting results problematically. Wouldn't it be great if the authors could share their own experiences with the internet apart from their research. John, maybe you could invite them here!!

Enough for now.

• re:lighting up one's life by Spacey, 9/13/98