Dear FRONTLINE,

I was engrossed by kids growing up online, but not at all surprised. I founded a myspace site (myspace.com/randompeoplewhocare) which allows kids to offer peer support and encouragement in a faith-based online setting. At first I was surprised by the kids candor, but I've become used to their frankness, and feel privileged to be a part of these kid's lives. One constant heartbreak, however, is the fact that so many parents , teachers, etc... are unaware of the serious problems that many of these kids are dealing with. Sarah's story of her eating disorder particularly resonated with me. Thank you for trying to bridge this gap of information.

Kelli Boyle
Fairbanks, Alaska

Dear FRONTLINE,

As a 30-something parent of small children, I found myself partially identifying with both the parents and the teens on your program---yet I felt really a world away.

I fear for the future of my children. And I realize now that a policy of "One computer in a public space" in our home will not be sufficient to protect them: They will need to have the tools to help themselves navigate this ever-expanding frontier.

Please continue to follow this story.

Doug Anderson
Orem, Utah

Dear FRONTLINE,

As trivial as this may sound to some, one of the greatest losses to our society - fueled, in my opinion, by the internet - is basic literacy.

It is disturbing to me that the people who will be in great part controlling society in another 20 years do not know the difference between "your" and "you're" and have possibly never read a book that they weren't forced to.

There is no substitute for instilling a desire to learn, and the parents of this generation seem to have failed in this.

Welcome to the fast-food culture of America.

Noel Kaplan
Houston, TX

Dear FRONTLINE,

I have always felt it important to monitor the internet activity of my children. I was less worried about predation than about the persistence of data published on the internet. Its all still there. Boast on your myspace page about some activity and there it is still available years later to your employer, insurance company, government, scam artist, or blackmailer.

Five years ago I installed a commercially available monitoring program on each of their computers. The children were told about the program, and the reasons I felt it was important. The kids don't like it but their welfare was more important. I would jump in front of a speeding truck to save my child, why wouldn't I protect them as well from other dangers?

Balancing the child's need for privacy, to express themselves, to develop their own personality, was not easy. Instead of hanging on their every written word or viewed website, I used the software only to check in from time to time to see where their heads were at. How many school shootings, how many suicides, would be prevented if parents monitored the internet activity of their kids? I owe it to my kids, we owe it to society.

The following is a brief summary of some of the events of the past five years.

An angry father called on me about some very suggestive things my son had allegedly written to his daughter. I invited him in for coffee and we reviewed the logs together. He had only seen one half of the conversation. Upon review, his daughter had instigated the incident, and her writings to my son, he quickly backed down. My son learned that what he writes on the internet is subject to being printed out by another party and used in ways he had not intended. We also discussed sexual harassment and how what you think is fun can be quickly turned against you if the other party has a change of mind.

An eating disorder was discovered in time to get help.

A friend mutilating herself by cutting was discovered in time to get help.

A principal was notified that his middle-school dance was the planned site for a stabbing of a 8th grader by some older boys from another town because of some things said on the internet. The older boys did show, but the principal and the local police intervened at the door. (My kids not involved!)

A MySpace page that even though "annonymized" by not including real names, towns, ages, etc., still gave enough information for someone to find the real name, age, date of birth, school, age, street, home alone after school, and favorite fruit, all by answering and reposting responses to a chain letter.

Think my kids are wack-jobs? This was all in middle-class suburban Maine with both kids on the honor-roll and two loving and attentive parents in a normal, stable, and functional family.

Producers: feel free to contact

Holden, ME

Dear FRONTLINE,

I am a librarian and am interested in the subject of the Internet and its impact in culture. I recently viewed your program "Growing up Online" and am writing to thank you for not sensationalizing the content of the program. I was very impressed with your analysis of social network trends in the schools. I enjoyed hearing from all three segments missing from most media coverage: the children, their parents, and the teachers of the children. Bravo, and well done. It was useful because I got to hear from experts who have studied the trends, and fascinating to hear from educators. To make something appear hopeless is not reporting a story; it is only selling a story. You went far beyond that substandard so prevalent in professional journalism. Thank you for raising, and not lowering standards.

David W. Henson
Chicago, IL

Dear FRONTLINE,

First of all let me say that I do not have teenagers of my own but I have nieces and nephews and friends with teenagers. I watched this program tonight and was amazed at how little 'control' parents have over their children. And, yes, these are still children. It just seems to me that there's something wrong with not knowing what your children are doing on the Internet. I believe in checking cell phones, contents of rooms and, yes, whatever is on a computer that would be in my home. This is certainly a new day, but I still believe the parents must be in control of what goes on in their households.My view is that when you are old enough to work and pay the bills, then you can control what goes on in your own household because as long as you live under my roof, I still have the control.

valarie fane
southfield, mi

Dear FRONTLINE,

The views presented on the television program is biased from some the adults shown, we did grow up without computers but to deny our children an outlet to understand the world is a criminal injustice that we can't put on our children. The Mother shown who emailed the other parents regarding the OAR concert was completely out of line, and there is a line. Which we as parents must respect as we once wanted to be respected to.

So many thoughts are going through my head right now, and it would be way too offensive to write them down, but PBS i as a devoted watcher of your program am disapointed in promoting such a show. Please take my thought s in consideration, and stop airing shows like this to plant ideas in the minds of weary parents to cut into there childrens life with such ignorance.

James Marshall
Dallas, Texas

Dear FRONTLINE,

I have been a teacher for 23 years and, after seeing tonight's show, I felt validated. My sixth grade students are having great difficulty dealing with the crushing consequences of sharing life online. Because they cannot truly conceive of the expanse of the internet's reach, they tell their most intimate and fleeting thoughts and feelings. Some choose to print them up and share them at school the next day. I, as their teacher, must take time from academic pursuits to tend to the devastating damage that such exchanges can generate. My students are too young and fragile to realize that the internet provides NO privacy. They cannot fathom that the what they are sharing can be read worldwide. As many times as I have warned them, shown them, advised them, they are driven to continue to be accepted. Just as you say in the show, they cannot be "out of the loop" for more than a few minutes. I sympathized with the English teacher who is still attempting to promote reading and critical analysis. With China and India looming on the horizon, hungry for growth and intellectual rewards, can we afford to allow our children to abandon reading, critical thinking, and merely "cut and paste" their futures? Our academic standing worldwide is a reflection of our lack of rigidity in academic expectations and our cultural "laissez faire" attitude when it comes to overseeing what is going on with our children. Does this internet connection foster problem solving, critical analysis, and political and global awareness?I don't think so . . . not when life can be learned through Spark Notes.

Eighty Four, PA

Dear FRONTLINE,

I just finished watching this special and found it to be an important piece. I wanted to comment on this because I am 25 and want people to know that not only do parents feel a huge generation gap with their children, my generation had a very different lifestyle as well. My family did not have a computer until I was in high school, therefore I did not grow up online. I don't remember cell phones being an issue in high school either until maybe Junior or Senior year (around 2000). It's amazing to me that I am only 10 years older than current high school kids and their lives are so much more involved with the internet than I remember my generation to be. MySpace and Facebook may not have even been invented when I was in high school now that I think about it. If it had been I'm sure that my classmates and I would have acted the same way that these high school students had, and I could tell you that I would not have wanted my parents involved in my internet use at all. I wanted to post this just to show how quickly society can change and how accelerated our society is now when a ten year gap now means that you are out of touch. I also want to comment that I do have Facebook and MySpace accounts, but I do not think that my generation is as involved with the internet as children are now. I think it is important not to totally shield children from the internet, because it is part of our culture now, but to try to be involved enough in your child's life that you know what they are up to, which could mean for some computer illiterate parents today that they are going to need to learn how to use the internet in order to be on top of things. (Easy enough for a non-parent to tout!)

Liz Callan
Baltimore, Maryland

Dear FRONTLINE,

This program was very interesting to me... I am an Engineer and design information systems for corporations, in some cases with parallels to myspace and youtube. Two points beg to be addressed...

1) Are parents to some degree not enablers here? Don't setup Internet at home (or only on a passworded work computer). Granted, they will find access other places, but it would most likely not be hours of endless unsupervised access. Also, why do today's kids more than myself need a cell phone?

2) Facebook, Myspace... these are all businesses built on ad revenue. Just like any other corporation marketing to minors, why are they not required to be a part of the solution? Rather than try and pry a password from their child, I picture that parents would have the ability to create accounts that give access to view the activities of their children.

In the end these are minors and parents are still responsible for their actions. Our children are unaware of how their profiles will affect the opportunities available to them as adults. And nothing ever is gone on the Internet...

Peter Brunnengraeber
Rochester, NY

Dear FRONTLINE,

I feel this was a very informative documentary. I've been on both sides of the aisle. Starting in middle school i was bullied constantly for the way I dress and there was a huge rumor about me being gay. Overtime this faded and it was soon I who was making fun of a kid who's fat. It's only now at the ripe old age of 16 that I've come to terms with how to deal with the same problems Ryan faced. Going to school still with the same kids who have bullied me has made it difficult, but I feel it has created me a resource that my friends can lean on in their times of trouble. I believe a good use of the internet could be a site that allows teen to get help from other teens. Since in the end I do believe the internet is an amazing tool that can do great things.

Raleigh, North Carolina

Dear FRONTLINE,

As a middle-school teacher in the Bronx, I can attest that online interactions--gossip, bullying, flirting, etc.--create an overwhelming subtext, often a disruptive one, to the classroom community. Many fights, instigated online, break out in the classroom, but unlike "in person" conflicts, of which I am usually aware and for which I can offer preventative intervention, the online dynamics are invisible to me until their effects manifest at school. The effect is bewildering, and I find that my most instinctive (though least correct) response is just to want to "shut out" the online influence upon my classroom. Though I myself use social networking sites occasionally to meet up with friends, etc., my first reaction to this interference was very "anti-Internet."

However, having viewed the Frontline program, I now feel that the cyberspace, like the subway, the market, or even school itself, is, in fact, a social space and site of social communication; it makes no more sense to cry for banishment of the Internet than it would have a century ago to rail against the telephone, on the grounds that it might be misused for gossip or harassment. What is critical is for parents to instruct their children in appropriate comport when online, just as parents instruct children in other behaviors: saying "please" and "thank you," waiting one's turn, the appropriate way to answer the phone, and so on. Because of the generation-technology gap, parents have avoided their responsibility in this way to a large extent, and (in some cases) their techno-phobia about the Internet has allowed their children to exploit cyberspace as a "parent-free zone." The Internet is clearly not waning any time soon; perhaps it is time for more parents, like Evan Skinner, to take an active role in instructing their children in online values, regardless of whatever resistance they may encounter from their predictably annoyed offspring.

Leah Hooper
New York, New York

Dear FRONTLINE,

I was 18 when the internet began to take it's hold on America. I was a freshman at a major University. Email was a new technology that the sophomores ahead of me did not even have an account. By the time I graduated, all incoming freshmen were required to obtain an email account before they could even register for classes.

I was also just coming out of the closet as a homosexual. The internet served as a place for me to chat with other gays and explore my sexuality. (Back then gays were not as visible, and Will and Grace had not become a hit.)

What I learned from those early days of the internet is a social skill most of us have not taught our children to apply online: treat others as you would like to be treated; say please and thank you; don't pretend to be something you're not. In this age of instant gratification, we forget those cordial social rules of engagement. The same goes for email. It should not read like a text message you'd send to a friend. It should be formal and look very much like a letter.

The internet does not have to be evil. The forum does not have to be a rude environment. We have a wonderful opportunity to make it an amazing form of social interaction. We cannot forget that what happens online can translate into behaviors offline.

NY, NY

Dear FRONTLINE,

I thought one of the most telling comments in this documentary was the one by the author of "Unravelling Facebook (or was is MySpace?). She said (and I paraphrase here), "The Internet has created the greatest generation gap between parents and kids since the birth of rock and roll." Yet, most of the parents that expressed such concern about the way their children are immersed in the on-line world, are very likely to have been the children who stared unblinkingly at Elvis swiveling his hips on the Ed Sullivan Show to the horror of their parents." We all survived adolescence, despite our parents, I am confident today's digital youth will do the same.

George Loftus
Newport, RI

Dear FRONTLINE,

I watched Growing Up Online, I was taken by over-whelming paranoia that parents experience raising children in an internet world. Yes, we are living in a world that is increasingly transparent because of the internet, but, by no means is the world any different then when my parents grew up. They grew up in a society where drug use and sexual activity was widespread. We are growing up in a culture where information is widespread. While they were uninformed; we are well informed.

I think parents are doing a poor job of parenting in this era and need to learn to communicate better and let go of this seemingly threatening new technology that is dismantling the family system. Critics have always debunked technology, as a means of over-exposure to society, but, is it really over-exposure or just exposure that the suburban mindset lacks.

The City, Matthew DeTemple

Matthew DeTemple
forest hills, NY