Read "Children and Computers: New Technology--Old Concerns." Next, respond to the class blog by reflecting upon the dangers and hazards of digital technologies vis. a vis. television/movie/radio technology. Is there a "darker side" to the digital internet-based technologies than the media of television? Explain.
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When a new product is made, it is rated by users for its pros and cons. Just like this, we as a society has been rating new technological innovations for decades now. With each innovation, film, radio, television and internet-based, there has always been a group people who supported it for its educational values and those who have spoke against it for the fear of its negative impact on our society. For each of those cases, at the end, it was the parents’ job to control the children’s usage of each new tool. Currently, the widespread usage of internet has another opposition to deal with and it is the potential for children to engage in sexual and/or criminal activities and being in danger of becoming a prey to the online pedophiles and other criminals.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do not believe that there is a "darker side" to the digital internet-based technologies than the media of television. It is true that the digital internet-based technologies require more parental control and other methods in controlling what the children can access to, but I think we, as a society, are capable of doing so. Nowadays, the children need more stimulating and interactive education tools, in fact I believe their brains demand it. With such trend, using internet-based is required to provide the students with the most up-to-date and engaging materials to educate them for the future. In the past, we were able to design necessary measures to control children’s exposure to new technology and I believe we can do so again. The children will seek out and intake what they wish to focus on, so technology innovation and high crime rate should not be considered to be a cause-and-effect kind of relationship. There isn’t a “darker side” to the digital internet-based technology, and even if there is, I believe we are ready for such challenge.
I agree with Nali that there is not really a "darker side" to digital internet-based technologies. If anything, the collaborative and participatory nature of the internet is good for kids and exposes them to many more ideas than they'd otherwise have early on which naturally gives them a chance to appropriately weigh how they view the world and how they shape their beliefs. Kids are curious by nature and want to seek advice outside of their parents, their religious institution, their teachers and even their immediate peers. More exposure, whether valid or not, generally allows kids to seek out knowledge and get it more easily.
ReplyDeleteIf there is a "darker side" to media in general, I believe that it is advertising. In seeking out this aforementioned knowledge, kids are bound to run into ads and I agree with the article that "most children, and indeed many adults, have difficulty understanding the complex relationship between programming, advertising, and the basic economic structure underlying broadcast media" (38). On the internet, even if parents elect to use filters, they can't filter out ads. I really liked the idea that at a young age, kids can by trained to be "critical media consumers" (39). I'm not sure to what extent this training exists in schools now, but if I have children, I'd definitely seek a school out that offers it and try to help as much as possible as a parent. In a similar fashion, with my freshmen class now, I expose them to a documentary highlighting the darker side of Disney in a documentary entitled "Mickey Mouse Monopoly." While the reaction to the documentary is mixed, I think that exposure to a critique of popular media is eye-opening and ultimately beneficial to how my students critically view media be it by way of the internet, tv, film or radio.
I agree with your insight on advertising. Now with data mining, profiling, radio frequency tags, fb, and cookies, advertising is that much more personalized and insidious.
DeleteDo we really have any free will?
I think that we...
Sorry, gotta go. Just saw a groupon on my ipad that I want to buy. :)
I believe there are two possible downsides to this new media. It is the further decrease of face to face human and small group interaction that our species was built upon and evolved from and the ever ease of accessibility to misogynistic adult content.
ReplyDeleteThere's an interesting story by JG Ballard titled "Intensive Care Unit" (1977) that paints a picture of a world in which social interactions are mediated through in-home cameras and close circuit monitors. Face to face human interaction becomes tenuous without spoiling the story. (Highly suggest reading it. It's imagery is TV-like.)
On the second point, I might couch my comments in prefacing that I am in full concord with our first amendment rights and do not consider myself a prude, but even with filters, adult content is very easy to access. The power of the web is that anything can be copied and distributed digitally without loss of fidelity and into perpetuity. Those two new features allows all information to become viral and accessible on multiple sites. This was impossible with movies, radio, and television. Inappropriate content had to be consumed in a theatre in public or purchased on magnetic tapes or burned discs. Distribution was physical and snail-like.
Now, a persistent search, disabled cookies, and proxy servers allow instant access. I feel with the advent of mobile devices with 4G bandwidth, this access will become even more private, personal, and possibly isolating.
What messages will our children learn to associate as the norm? As the constant buzz of the TV and computer screen have become my 8 AM to 12 AM norm, what will the next generation not even notice like fish in water.
The previous media was able to be controlled easily by censoring and monitoring the limited contents. People might be satisfied with no worrys about inappropriate contents exposed to them or their children.
ReplyDeleteHowever, controlling and regulating media also means that certain contents could be purposely omitted or added. This draws a potential risk that people could be biased by the controlled information and also controlled media can be used to move public opinion or sentiment by certain group power.
Meanwhile, the Internet media allows us to access/choose/produce contents by ourselves and frees us from limited information.
However, these benefits of the Internet also brought great potential harms, such as being easily exposed to inappropriate or faulty content and scams. And unlimited boundary of the Internet makes the Internet media hard to be regulated or controlled. It seems like everyone has to take a responsibility for its own gatekeeper and regulation to protect itself from potential harms of the Internet.
Finding a solution to minimize the potential harms of Internet might be too hard compared to the previous media. For example, the idea 'creating new incentives for developing higher-quality media' would work well? Internet business is also moved by market demand. When a company still can make more money from the market with its ‘lower quality media’ than money from the incentives, how the incentives can play a role as a trigger? (And where those all money for the incentives would come from?)
It seems we need to admit that both risk and benefit would co-exist as long as Internet exists. Although many groups and companies have been working on the better Internet environment, they are not enough.
We may also need to take our responsibility to develop our own screening and censoring ability to protect ourselves from potential harms of the Internet not only depending on any guard systems or regulations.
Historically, the emergence of new technology such as television and radio has prompted concerns and criticisms from scholars, educators and parents, anxious about the negative ramifications the technology may have on their children. Digital Internet-based technologies inspire the same unease and questions. Is this new technology debilitating to a child’s development and cognition? And, with the expansive the opportunities for gathering information and connecting with others, is the material my child is exposed to on the Internet appropriate and relevant?
ReplyDeleteIn the article, Seymour Papert, says “earlier media, whether educational or not, still puts the child in a passive mode, a situation of seeing or hearing rather than doing.” Television and radio allowed children to watch or listen and respond, but no interaction or positive reinforcement was possible. With some educational internet-based technology, children now have the ability to have actual interaction with the material. Computer programs can give constructive feedback, reward correct behaviors and provide multi-sensory learning opportunities. These are indicators that computer technology is already strides ahead of past technologies when it comes to educational development.
The more alarming part of the “dark side” of new technology is the unsavory people and information that can be accessed with ease on the Internet. The integration of media and technology in a classroom adds a special challenge for the teacher, who must facilitate learning while monitoring for suitable and safe websites and sources. Parents also must be held accountable for their child’s Internet use, exercising diligence in maintaining their child’s safety online. This means teachers and parents must help their children become discerning media-users, teaching them to recognize credible and safe sources and sites. The article describes how young people today are already beginning to develop a sense for navigating the Internet. “With training, children as young as five years old can become more critical media consumers, but the ability to comprehend media content and discern underlying messages and motives evolves slowly. In general, the burden of protecting children from exposure to harmful content continues to fall to parents.”
Though a “dark side” to Internet technology does exist, the benefits far outweigh the hazards, and as we evolve I am confident we can learn to help new generations safely and successfully use new technologies.
When thinking about children and how they use technology (new and old), I believe that hazards and dangers will always exist within all forms of technology. Dangers have existed way before my time, and as technology grows, they will continue to exist. In my opinion, there is not a “darker side” to digital technology, in comparison to the media of television. Media of television had negative aspects, in regards to children, and digital technology has similar negativity surrounding it. Both forms of technology seem to be equally dangerous and hazardous. Since digital technology enables the fast, immediate access of any content, including television media, I believe that parents and educators should be precautious and continually monitor the technology usage of their children and students. As educators and parents, we have access to content from all over the world, good and bad. Therefore, when integrating technology into the classroom or at home, similar to any curriculum, I believe that teachers and parents should carefully research all forms of digital media before incorporating them. Again, I believe that dangers will always lurk around the many forms of technology, but this should not cause people to shun digital media and other good tools that are used to reach the varying needs of learners throughout the world. Like everything that has come and gone, people just need to remain aware of the positives and negatives of technology and proceed with caution.
ReplyDeleteEvery media medium has the potential to have a "dark side" when discussing their effects on children. It can definitely be argued that internet contains more potential for this negative element because of the relative ease of access and the amount of information available. What I think is important to note is that these forms of media themselves are not inherently harmful or beneficial. TV is not going to do something to you without you playing a part in it. It is our interactions with TV, internet, video games, what have you, that determine their effects. We are actively playing a role in our consumption of media and it is often portrayed the other way around; violent tv programs or video games are making us more violent against our will. It is important for us to recognize our role in this.
ReplyDeleteWhile reading this study, it occurred to me that there has been a massive disconnect between the different types of media that we have in our lives and their importance in schools as a literacy skill. We stress the importance of reading, writing, and math in our school system and look at those skills as the top of the pedestal in education. Our education system has not and does not view film, radio, television, video games, and internet as mediums that we should teach our students any sort of literacy in. Our school system in many ways has an incredibly antiquated mindset when it comes to broadcast media and we then wonder why many of our children grow up with unhealthy relationships with their TV or computer.
I think that we need to teach our children digital and broadcast media literacy from a young age in the same manner and with the same importance that we stress literacy in reading, writing, and math. We need to re-think what it means to be literate in 2012 rather than continue teaching what it means to be literate in 1912.
More on the point of internet containing more potential for harm than television, many of the hazards of television such as advertising, violence, and inappropriate content exist on the internet. But, as I stated before, the content itself is not the problem; the problems arise when we do not think about our interactions with the content. In many ways, our children are growing up media illiterate without the cognitive tools to critically examine their relationship with the medium as well as the nature of the medium itself. Paul brought up advertising as one of the "dark" sides of internet (any broadcast medium, really), and I agree that a child's interaction with advertising can be problematic, especially if they do not have any sort of way to think critically about advertising in general. If we equip our students with the tools to see a commercial and ask themselves questions such as:
What is this company trying to sell me?
What techniques are they using to convince me to buy their product?
Is buying this product really going to make me happy?
Why is this company advertising on this particular channel?"
then we will have a population better suited to have a positive relationship with media. Questions such as the ones I listed above can also be applied to internet.
A point that I also agree with is that all people, not just children, still need to interact with the world outside of their devices. This is where the incredible importance of balance comes into play. It is very difficult, but we need to find balance with our use of media and our interactions outside of it. As much as I can sit in front of a computer or TV reading about the things that interest me, playing a multiplayer game with friends, or creating something new for hours, I have also had to learn how to get the hell out of the house and interact with the world around me.
Media is powerful. From its beginnings in film more than 100 years ago through the advent of radio, television and computers, it has dramatically altered how individuals perceive themselves and understand the world. The inevitable effects of media on young people are both positive and harmful. Media has the power to carry individuals to worlds unseen, opening them to new ideas and possibilities. Yet it also has a destructive power to distort reality and possibly cause harm. Teaching young people to skillfully navigate mediated environments is the best way to mitigate the harmful impact of media.
ReplyDeleteThe problem of content value, regardless of medium will always exist so long as media is commercial in nature. Unfortunately, media is primarily a tool to sell products and therefore designed by powerful interests to elicit emotions within the consumer that will result in consumption. Media content, should therefore be continually examined and debated in the public sphere. Programs educating young people to be perceptive and critical consumers of media must be the shared responsibility of parents, schools and communities. The powerful economic forces at play in the media landscape will only become more concentrated, making public engagement and media education the most viable responses to counteract such forces.
The democratic and interactive nature of the internet gives it an educational value that is potentially greater than that of film, radio and television. The ability of the user to control the experience and actively participate gives internet-based technologies unique potential for active learning, but there is a “darker side” to the internet. Unlike film, radio and television, there is no content “gatekeepers” controlling information published to the web. Shielding young people from questionable content in the wilderness of information, ideas and messages that is the internet is challenging and perhaps impossible. Protecting young people from the potential hazards of the internet is difficult, but necessary if we are to realize the benefits of this great technology.
Internet-based technologies have powerful and compelling new potential. Yet, despite the article’s rosy conclusion, I am skeptical that future media content will “enhance children’s emotional and cognitive lives in wonderful new ways.” Realizing the potential of the internet will be accomplished through educating young people to understand and appreciate the medium, deconstruct complex media messages and effectively navigate the internet while raising their awareness of its potential dangers.
It is good for this parent to know, that so much HAS been researched and analyzed about the effects of technology, right up to (pretty) current technology, that we are using today.
ReplyDeleteThe continued efforts of one part of a society, parents, educators and those more concerned with using and teaching the use of tools, vs the business side of many kinds of tools including technology, is part of any society, and it;s useful to understand that, to work with it.
This whole article reminds me of the different problems that current exist with regards to society´s health, the costs that everyone is affected by ( insurance costs are just one aspect), food choices, whose job is it to ; teach people how to eat, and how much. Regulation, education, personal responsibility, they are all ingredients that are also present in the analysis of the current problems with technology.
There have been significant discussions and exposes of the problems that the current technologies have brought on, including problems with children.
Parents are the gate keepers for their children, and this is actually another important issue to bring out into this arena of discussion: it is not the job of society , nor schools, nor the teachers that get to teach these children, to replace or substitute parents who are not doing this part of their job, for numerous reasons.
It is a parent;s job to learn what he does not know, including about health, safety, and then education, to help guide their children along, even if it;s just one step ahead of the children(!). So, too is it the responsibility of a parent to teach his children about cars, then how to drive, and the consequences of problems.
Since the tools discussed in this article include many technology items, including internet, software programs, and similar things, it will be absolutely indispensable for the good resources, like the (at least) three websites mentioned in footnote 46, and non profit and government agencies alike, to be promoted more, to help anyone interested in learning where the filtering devices are, and how to best try to use these tools, in both school lives and in personal lives too.
I take solace, from the research done in the past century, into the movie, radio and then tv industries; effects on childrens; lives, that current investigations and monitoring will be useful in sounding the correct alarms, to all.
Then the question becomes, do those who hear these alarms do something about this, even in their own lives, homes and with their own children?
Elizabeth