The brainchild of members of a MAASA discussion group, “The Parent Connection” groups will make a point of including consideration of the rapidly expanding technology that affects almost everyone’s lives, especially those of children and teens.
Interested parents may register now for a group by sending e-mail to ParentConnection@optonline.net, or calling Madison Health Educator Christine Shesler at (973) 593-3079, ext. 8.
The premise of “The Parent Connection” is that kids gain a huge amount of knowledge at a previously unheard-of speed.
The tools: computers, text messaging, instant messaging (IM), blogs, cell phones and Internet technologies such as MySpace.com and Facebook.com, which many parents are only vaguely aware of.
This leap in technology has been compared to the vast changes brought about when the first telephones appeared, and altered the nature of communication forever.
Some have likened the recent batch of communication technologies to “gateway drugs,” because they provide a faster and easier pathway than ever before to huge amounts of information.
Facebook.com introduces itself as “an online director that connects people through social networks. You can use Facebook to look up people around you, see how people know each other, and make groups and events with your friends.” Facebook uses photos, with 1.5 million photos uploaded daily. The name is derived from paper “facebooks” that many colleges give to students, faculty and staff to help familiarize everyone with the campus community.
MySpace.com is a similar network with user-submitted profiles, blogs, photos, music and videos. It has its own search engine and e-mail system. It accounts for about 80 percent of all visits to social networking Web sites, and has become an influential part of contemporary popular culture.
Although it originated with colleges and universities, Facebook has expanded. It began with a user’s profile and a picture that could be uploaded, and has grown to include a wide variety of personal information. “Anybody can find you. Anybody can contact you,” said a graduate student. Facebook has provided a means of easy communication, which can be used in many constructive ways, but there have been concerns about strangers misrepresenting themselves and stalking users.
On a recent airing of ABC TV’s Primetime, the relationship between technology and social interaction among teens was examined. The conclusion was that with adolescent girls, especially, the technology has at times led to “cyberbullying,” in the form of “spreading gossip, rumors, and public lashings, leaving teenagers with painful battle scars,” according to Keturah Gray of ABC News. The media included Internet sites like Facebook and MySpace, cell phones, and instant messaging.
Some parents have been shocked to find that their kids have posted pictures of themselves and friends posing with drugs, alcohol, or paraphernalia on Facebook or MySpace. There have also been sexual pictures posted, including individuals and groups soliciting for sex and drugs. Students are being asked to think about the long-term consequences of putting questionable personal information on the Web. There is concern about how Facebook or MySpace information might impact a student’s reputation, their chances for a job after graduation or, someday, running for public office. Employers in the future may routinely check a job applicant’s information in Facebook or MySpace, and the “I didn’t inhale” argument won’t work when pictures and postings exist in cyberspace.
These technologies are not going away. Neither are they inherently evil or harmful. The risk with the new tools of social networking are the same as the risks have been all along on the Internet: Kids can be naive and inexperienced, making errors in judgment that can lead to dangerous situations. As with the issues of adolescent behavior, substance misuse and abuse, and the many other facets of parenting, there are no right or wrong answers. The best a parent can do is to stay current with the factors that influence children’s lives, and talk about them often.
The expanded MAASA Parent Discussion Groups, now known as “The Parent Connection,” will seek to add the dimension of technology to the body of information about substance abuse and child and adolescent behavior for exploration and discussion about the most important job in the world: raising our children.
The writer, a resident of Madison, is active as a volunteer for community organizations, notably the Madison Alliance Against Substance Abuse.