I recently had a conversation at a party with a woman who was introduced to me by a mutual friend. We had what I thought was a candid conversation about our lives. That night, almost absentmindedly, I found myself googling her. A simple search turned into an hour-long, slightly uncomfortable tour of her life, during which I learned all sorts of information that she had represented quite differently in person.
When I finally closed my computer, I felt a little sick, both from having more information than I wanted about someone else and from my own, slightly guilty sense of having snooped where I didn't belong. It all made me wonder what privacy online really means.
In reading the responses to my earlier post, I found that many of you are wondering the same thing. How much online privacy should we give our children? Should we feel guilty for "spying" on their online activities? After all, what they do on the Internet is open to the world. What kind of information is appropriate to put online and what should be off-limits?
The difference of opinion between parents and kids who have posted is striking. Adults tend to worry that kids and teens will be hurt in some way by the information they make public online; younger people often claim that there are benefits to making their personal lives available to a wider audience.
One post in particular really struck me. A reader named David
wrote about his 15-year-old son, who David had thought of, until recently, as
responsible and mature enough to have some privacy online. But when David
decided to do a bit of snooping around his son's computer, he discovered that
his son's profile in the online game World of Warcraft included a link to a
hardcore porn Web site, among other things.
I was especially struck by this statement in David's post:
The loss of the youthful innocence of your beloved son seems so much more eerie and weird when it's exposed or revealed to the masses on the Internet. This is not a "found" under the bed Playboy or Penthouse; this is a screaming shot around the world that exposes my son to any and all who wish to take note (italics mine).
Reading David's post made me wonder, is he really better off having discovered this information about his son? How much of David's discomfort comes from the fact that he discovered information that was meant to be public -- albeit for someone else's consumption, not his? In fact, later in his post he writes, "What the hell had I done? I felt so disappointed in my son, but also myself for ever having pursued this web search."
I think all of us can relate to David's sense of unease about having done a little too much snooping online: checking out our kids' or spouse's history online, or googling an ex-boyfriend or girlfriend, or spending more time than we intended reading a stranger's confessional posts on a social networking site. It's a strange feeling, because the transparency of the Internet suggests that it's okay to read anything about anyone online. And yet perhaps this discomfort we feel is a sign that we know that's not true.
Perhaps instead of the strict polarization of "private vs. public," we should be thinking about different levels of privacy online. In fact, most things posted online for "public" consumption are in fact meant for a specific audience, even if it's an audience of strangers. Most kids who post personal thoughts on social networking sites do not expect their parents or teachers to see those. When David posted very sensitive information about his son here, he probably did so knowing that his son and his son's peers would be unlikely to see it. As researcher danah boyd told us in an interview: "Privacy is about control of audience" (italics mine).
I'm interested in knowing what information -- wanted and
unwanted -- you have discovered about other people online. Have any of you ever
found out something about someone else online that has really affected you?
Have you ever posted anything and been made aware of someone else having seen
it who you didn't expect to read it? What was your reaction to that?
Before the advent of many of today's commonplace technologies (social networking sites, blogs, cellular phone & text messaging capabilities), it seems to me that friendships and other social relationships were, in certain regards, much easier. It seems (or seemed) to be a fact of life that, throughout one's life, a person would have friendships of varying sorts and degrees that would wax and wane according to one's current circumstances in life. A change of address, change of school, change of employment, etc. would, to some extent, bring about needs to adjust to one's new environment and to forge new acquaintances/new ways of doing things. People and places from one's "old life" often remain important, but certainly less visible and, necessarily, less a part of one's current life.
With today's technologies, this musn't be the case. We are able to stay in touch with, essentially, whomever we want, whenever we want.
While there are readily-apparent pros to these technologies, there are also often-neglected cons. I, for one, notice a difficulty moving on from certain relationships and things from one stage of my life and transitioning into others. There's a security in knowing that I COULD easily maintain some sort of regular, working sociality with a person miles away from myself, but, if left unchecked, it limits my abilities to begin new sorts of relationships with a person in my immediate, "real-time" sphere of influence. Which frienships should be regularly fostered? Which should be allowed to fade (or, at very least, lie dormant)? This may sound somewhat dramatic, but in the specific case of a social networking site, one cannot reasonably expect to be genuine "best friends" with 200+ people.
I, for one, am still a believer that real, one on one friendships and interactions best a computer monitor!
Another interesting, though somewhat unrelated, experience comes to mind. Recently, throught the aid of a social networking site, I was able to arrange a date with a "friend" (acquaintance, more appropriately) whom I had met only a handful of times, but was interested in.
Before the meeting, through the aid of said site and related blogs, I was able to learn quite a bit of personal information about the person. I felt, as mentioned in your post, a little awkward and slightly guilty for having done so, but felt some measure of justification in learning, through cues during the conversation, that she had obviously, to some extent, done the same for me.
Honestly, it was kind of an awkward experience. I didn't want to admit that I already knew all sorts of random information about her, but found that there honestly was not much to talk about on a first date that I had not already learned covertly through my preliminary "investigation." It was like we were these strangers who were sitting across a table from each other, but had all of this information we couldn't use without revealing our prior espionage!
Anyway, the experience was definitely food for thought and will certainly pattern my future internet/technology use.
I am a 53-year-old teacher with four kids and seven grandkids. My youngest is in college and another is a recent graduate. They got aggravated when I kept looking at their Facebook pages and they told me to get my own account. So I did! They accepted me as a "friend" and I can look on their pages all I want. Also, over 200 of my students are my "friends" and I see many many things that I am shocked about, but my students don't seem too concerned about it. My sister, brother, and sister-in-law are on Facebook and so are all of my nieces and nephews. We are all "friends," which is great. We all enjoy communicating with each other this way. BUT we adults know that we are very fortunate to have kids who are comfortable and confident enough to let us see their on-line lives. We are VERY thankful for that!
I just watched this video the other night, and this morning I blogged my thoughts - I wanted to share them.
http://jewlsntexas.blogspot.com/2008/07/growing-up-online.html
1) Even if you find someone's information, which is in sharp contrast to the person you know, which version do you believe?
Juicy gossips travel even faster than light. And it was before the Internet. In a place where noboby knows whether a rumor is started by a dog, why would I believe anything on the Internet? (I do, sometimes)
It is interesting to see people questioning wikipedia articles, while believing a rumor on a blog god-knows who wrote with whatever intentions in mind.
2) Psychological factors.
A rumor/gossip can affect your "feeling" toward a person, even if it is 100% false and absurd. Rational thinking can not help in some cases, because of the effects on subconsciousness. Politicians and advertisers have been doing it for ages("Swift boat veterans", "Obama's secret Muslim identity", anyone?).
Is it possible that a person, say me, is leaning to magnifying a piece of negative information, when I'm afraid of betrayal or being hurt by the others? In other words, is it possible that insecurity and groundless skepticism make me, subconsciously, WANT to believe the rumor? Imagine a girl who is afraid of losing her boyfriend. She might interpret his friendly smile toward another woman as flirting. The image/picture of his smile would always come to her mind whenever she has doubts about their relationship, even if she intentionally do NOT want to recall the image.
So do not google someone if you want to trust him/her.
The googling action itself should have told you that you didn't believe in the relationship already.
Googling is not the cause, but the effect.
---
Information about a relative/friend, from both the positive side and the negative side, has been troubling the human mind since the beginning. It was carried by months, letters, telegraphs, tabloids, radios and Tvs. The Internet is just a new media, which makes it travel faster and easier to reach, nothing more. How to deal with the information and human relationships, still and always will, lies with an individual.
BTW, I doubt you can find ANY useful information about more than 1%(60M) of the population on Earth.
I thought it was a well thoughtout telecast regarding the issues of youth and using the internet. However, it did not address other ethnicities to any degree. A camino here and there. I saw a few, but not indepth. I suspect it was geared toward the majority as society calls the white population. All children are threatened by online crime and misuse of the internet. Why a point was made, it missed the mark in the representation of America. But, I guess people only view the "majority" as America; the rest of us stumble onto it. And the Band Plays On!!!!
Growing up I didn't have a lot of friends in school and I clearly remember despretely wishing I could connect with others like me. I remember meeting friends at camp, swimming lessons, church, etc and longing to keep in touch, and wanting to bring photos to school to prove I had friends and a life!
I love how everyone's now doing this online, and wish I had this venue when i was young. We all want to connect. We all want a voice and a way to define ourselves.
Growing up as a good kid (who later became a great adult with great friends), I still did some crazy things that my parents would have been mortified if they knew about. Now my friends, coworkers and I can laugh about the stupid stuff we did! Many of us had similar crazy experiences even if we didn't know it at the time. It's a bonding experience. It proves we're not perfect. It means we're HUMAN!!!!
Now everyone shares their experiences online. Being of the pre-internet generation, I hear all the warnings of what to post, yet I find many young professionals now laughing amongst each other about their crazy pictures. Bonding the same way us older folk laugh over what we did away from the prying eyes of our parents.
These experiences help build character. They help us bond and connect. They help us learn to triump over stupid mistakes. They teach us things about ourselves. Why do we want to sanitize our kids lives from this?
Finally the porn popups are everywhere. They are even linked to common search words so searching for the most benign words brings up those sites. It does not mean your kids are remotely interested in it. (a search for WofWCraft would easily bring this cr@p up no matter who the person is). I am amazed at how easily my friends' kids brush this off like my generation brushes off junk mail. It's there but who really cares. I wish would could rid the internet of such garbage, but then there's a lot of things in the world I wish didn't exist. The reality is we just have to learn to FILTER, DISCERN, & IGNORE cr@ppy things. Kids should be learning these skills from parents, not growing up in some "bubble wrapped world" with no clue how to sift thru this cr@p and cope when they do encounter it.
I just finished watching your show online...it was very good! I had seen part of it one evening on the cyberbullying and yes that was terribly sad...heart breaking..I felt so bad for the dad, but I also wondered why this young boy didn't just block those bullying him or tell his parents? My son is 12 and tells me if someone says something to him they shouldn't. Then he blocks them and that is that. Amazingly I still more about the internet then he does...lol...but only because I have been online longer then him. I am 47 and am amazed at how uneducated so many parents are about the internet and find many of them don't want to even learn anything about it. I find that as distrubing as what I see these teenagers doing online. I also belong to youtube, Godtube, and numerous message boards. I used to do the IMing to several friends at once while doing other things on the net...I finally found it too distracting so put myself on invisible most of the time.
Anyway...back to the original question. The only time I have gone searching for someone online is when I get a bad feeling about them, usually all I know is their username but people tend to repeat those...so they can be found pretty easily on the net. Then yea, I have read what they have written to see if my questions about them were right or not...usually my concerns were right. On youtube people put their beliefs about whatever on their channels...though they might post on your video saying the opposite...all you gotta do is check their channel to see if they are on the up and up though. And they try to cheat and have more then one channel...but people find out and tell each other..nothing is hidden for long. I am not much for watching Vlogs...I have a short attention span I guess.
Having spend most of my life actually interacting with people face to face I find it difficult to just sit there and watch someone else talk and not be able to response like in a real conversation! Of course I can do a video response but I refuse to get a webcam. I won't get one because I don't want my young son to have access to one...even if they say the risk is low...I have read too many stories about predators luring kids to do things on their webcams to take that chance. Plus I see the comments on youtube...young girls saying come watch me naked on my webcam...its sickening. Its sickening they take so little pride in themselves...I find the pictures on Myspace and elsewhere with these young teens half naked extremely distrubing. That is one place that is totally off limits to my son...no myspace, no facebook...I already decided if the internet becomes a battle between us...its gone.
I think you guys need to dig deeper into this...young girls and guys undressing and doing other things on their webcams for money..they get paid through paypal so their parents never know! While your story focused on those kids truly attacked..truly taken advantage of..it didn't cover the many teens slowly brought into this..groomed...yes they do it willingly...but then those in cults supposedly are there willingly...after being brain washed. :(
What judge would say its ok for a child to do this and not put much of the blame on the predators? I think you would find this sort of thing is rampant...I have been all over the net though I DO avoid sleazy places...no porn...nothing like that but I still get the emails, see these young kids adversiting themselves all over the net..:( One time I did open an email see what this was all about. I saw a teenage girl barely dressed..posed in different positions then an invite to see her live on a webcam..and it cost money. She is nothing more then an internet hooker! Selling her body on the net!
These kids aren't stupid...they are smart but apparently have no morals or any self respect..they know the perverts are out there and willing to pay. Considering the massive amount of people addicted to porn..its an easy way to make money. And the parents don't have a clue! They have got to get the computer OUT OF THEIR KIDS ROOMS! That at least would help. Teaching them some self respect would help alot too! That their bodies aren't just a piece of meat to be sold..even if they aren't touched...boy if they had any idea of the kind of people on the other side of the screen watching and what they were doing I think they would puke.
And what happens to these young people doing this when they are no longer young and no longer have that body? Will their feelings of self worth go out the window? They are thinking they are special through their bodies only! Yet they have minds and personalities and great things they could be doing with their lives but here instead they are nothing but another porn shot on the net...how pitiful is that?
I really think these kids are ruining their future by what they post online. Now we are seeing teachers fired, others fired for the stuff they put on the net. Why are people just being so stupid in the common sense area? Even though I have been on the net for years..I never pretend to be someone else...why would I? I would never post the stuff these kids do. I actually like having some privacy! Its mine..not to be shared with the world! Otherwise its no longer special or just mine..it belongs to everyone once its on the net.
One day they will be older and wondering why they put that stuff on the net like that..its going to cause major problems in their life. But this being the first generation that has grown up on the net I guess they have to learn the hard way. I am hoping my son is smarter then that. I am teaching him now and hoping he will retain his morals online as he does when I am not around like when he is in school or at a friends.
While I understand parents want to know everything their kids are doing on the net (if they would just learn to use the net they could probably do a search and find their kids on myspace and youtube..its not that hard!) And keep an eye on them and I think they should...but also realize even before the net..when their kids were out hanging out with their friends....did the parents know everything that was going on then? What was said, who did what? No, of course not!
The kids then did have their secrets..their life outside of their parents..it just wasn't online. One thing the net cannot do..it cannot stick a hand out through the screen and hand your kids drugs..or a beer...or take them in a car with a drunk driver..there is always pros and cons with every part of our life. The net is just another part of our life...but the problem is so many parents know SO little about it. Or what is going on. Sorry this is so long. Keep up the good work!
First off - I wanted to thank you for the honest and entertaining program "Growing Up Online". I recently viewed it via the local cable company's "On Demand" service. I have to say, as a 22 year old working doing programming and software development, much of it was old news.
I do have to give you a lot of credit for not demonizing the internet. I left a post on the main page for the show, but also wanted to mention myself here. Simply put, my thoughts are as follows:
We know that "the media is the message" but if that is the case, then to understand the messages children are sending and receiving online, we must first understand what is "online". Unfortunately, it is my belief that many parents do not fully comprehend what the internet does and does not allow and what certain sites do and do not allow
(i.e. MySpace, Facebook etc... on a side note... suggestion to the parents out there... you don't need to know your child's password if you sit with them while they create and configure their MySpace and Facebook accounts... just ensure that privacy settings are set to levels you believe are appropriate).
In technology - ignorance runs wide and deep... how else to we get a U.S. senator claiming that the internet is a series of tubes? It's like fighting the AIDS epidemic... education is key. If we want to protect our children online we must first educate ourselves about the internet... all of the good and all of the bad that comes with it. The bad gets a lot of press coverage - that's what sells and boosts ratings after all. I would humbly suggest spending a bit more time on the good if you do indeed explore this topic again. Deserving parents need to know.
Respectfully,
Andy
This is a bit weird for me writing here, since i'm not from the states, but from Denmark (Europe you know??), but I have a bit to share on the topic.
6-7 years ago, I was a teenager, with a internet connection. We had a family computer that both me, my little sister and my mom shared. Well mostly me and my sister, because my mom couldn't tell the difference between a URL and an e-mail address.
Well one day I was checking up on my sisters profile on a danish network called lunarstorm. I used the network myself, for fun, and to express myself, and so did my sister. I was friends with her on the site, so i checked her pages once in a while. It had been quite a while since I last checked it, and it had some dramatic changes. The color schemes, the artwork and so on, had changed to black and dark colors. And she had posted a song from a danish rap-artist about suicide. All this I could handle, she had reasonly dyed her hair black as well, so this was proberbly just another one of her "gone goth" thingys. But it wasn't. There was a long entry on the page (public for everyone) about how she could relate to the song, and how her and her friends had been talking about suicide, and that the would do it together and so on.
The problem for me was that I was no where near her when I chekked her page, and was to be a way for a few more days, before I would see her. So First thing, I call her and tell her honestly that I've read her page. It didn't bother her, she actually sounded like it was nice that someone she knew well had found out. And told her to stay put, and I would talk with her as soon as I got home. Then I called her best friend, that also was one of my good friends, to hear if she was one of the people my sister had mentioned - She was. She told me that she was not in anyway serious about committing suicide, but had made the pact with my sister, to try to secure her from doing it. I told her that I would talk to her when I got back, and she should call me if my sister got more serious about it.
Here I choose not to call any of my parents. This might have been the right decision, maybe not. I still to this day do not know.
But I come home after a few days, and tries to talk to my sister, trying to find out whats wrong, but she won't talk to me. But our mutual friend will. I tell her to keep an eye on her, and keep me informed. And the everything is going better for a while. My sister seems more happy, and my friend is reporting that my sister no longer wants to commit suicide. Then one day I'm home randomly chatting on my computer, my friend calls. My sister just took all the pills she could find in the friends house, but now she want's out. I get my sister on the phone, ranting about not wanting to dye, and that she's don't know why she did it, and she don't know what to do. I tell her to get a jacket on, and get her friend back on the phone. I tell the friend to get out and go towards the hospital (it's a 15 minuttes walk) and I'll meet them on the way. Then I call the emergency room to tell them that I'm coming in with my sister who's just tried to kill herself with pills.
The rest of the story is a good one, we get her in, and after 24 hours not knowing if she lives or not, the doctors says she's going to be just fine.
With all this said, I don't think my mom have ever forgiven me for not telling her what I found on my sisters page. I'm still not sure it would have made any difference. But my sister have said that it made a huge difference that I knew, and that both my sister and her friend knew exactly who to call when it all went wrong. Because they were both in chok, and needed someone who knew what was going on, to talk to, and help them.
I don't really have a morale to this story, people have to deduce their own thought from reading this instead. But I have an oppinion on the subject of parents reading what their children do online. I don't think it's neccesary to do so, but if your child seems to change personality, it might be good to check up on them. But don't try to get their passwords or that stuff, just google them, check after them on facebook, myspace ect. and see what you find - you don't need a password, normally your kid wouldn't dream of you checking their profiles, so normally it would all be public. I'm not saying it is the right thing to do, but if you choose to do so, and think this is a useful tool, then DON'T tell them. Because, then they will feel the urge to hide the things they now share publicly.
To this day I always check up on my sister online, not that she's ever since wrote anything horrorfying, but just to make sure. But If I were a parent I properbly wouldn't. But when you're just a 3 year older sister, it's a lot easier.
Sorry if this is a bit of a mess, but I have never really shared the story and my thoughts on it before, so maybe it's a bit messy ;)
Gro, 22 years old, from Denmark
First of all, I would like to say that Frontline, its producers, writers, technicians and reporters, you do a fantastic job and I have the highest praise for this series. Throughout the last few years I have discovered just how much I truly enjoy public television because of its centrist and objective look into very important issues.
This program, "Growing Up Online" really touched on some very important issues regarding the so called, "online generation." I am in my late 20s and I have been online since I was about 16. I generally fall into the "online generation," however I guess I would consider myself one of its founding members. In the realm of internet exploration, I was there for Prodigy and AOL and saw the rapid acceleration from instant messaging to social networking.
One issue I found that was not explored enough on this episode was the idea of "identity validation." The girl, "Autumedows" did touch on the idea of becoming something different online, but I think there is much more to dig into with people like her. Anyone, at anytime, that gets on the internet, whether they are just emailing an old friend, setting up a profile on Myspace or just searching for information, creates a new identity for themselves. In doing so, the first thing they look for is to be validated, by someone, anyone. When we just search for information, whether it be taboo, work-related, or just for fun, we are looking to have our idea validated by someone. Myspace and other social networking sites, take this idea to the highest level. In creating these validating concepts, we desperately just need the approval of anyone.
These young people, profiled on "Growing Up Online" all seemed to share the idea of just being validated. They created new identities, maintained their online society and messaged each other constantly, because they needed to feel some type of value.
I guess my reason for posting here is to give a little stronger voice to why children would seek out people on the internet and explore.
Also, I have a few reassuring words for many parents out there with regards to their children on the internet. Remember, parents, everything loses its sheen after a while. I am living proof. Despite the doomsayers, eventually kids do turn off the computer. Trust me. I have 25 friends on Myspace and I know all of them intimately in real life. I talk to people on the internet, but I learned a long time ago that I would rather speak to them in person. A screen is just a screen, but a person is a world.
Additionally, to the parents of the boy that committed suicide, truly my empathy runs deep with them. That was probably the most heart wrenching story I have seen in a long time. As a survivor of a parent who committed suicide, I know very closely how they are torn by the most horrible question; why? I do not have much more to say, because there hardly are any words that can adequately express my grief for them. I wish them the best and am very proud of them for discussing this extremely difficult topic on a television show.
I tend to ramble a bit, but once again, kudos to Frontline for once again producing a thought provoking, objective and well thought out program. Keep up the good work, and I'll keep watching.
My younger son has been keeping a LiveJournal since 2001 when he was 16 years old. In his early days, I hardly even registered that he had it, and I don't recall being all that tempted to look at it when it did begin to register. He made an issue of wanting to keep it from the prying eyes of parents and such, and given that I had a diary of sorts as a teenager (which I don't even want to look at, myself, anymore) I curbed whatever temptation there might have been. Now, seven years later, that son has no problem with me reading his LJ, and looking back on those entries I didn't look at when he was a teen, I feel pretty secure in saying they wouldn't have caused me much disturbance. There's nothing there but the 'usual' expressions of adolescent angst, albeit very cleverly worded (that's one thing I can say about his LJ'ing; it helped make that boy a damn fine writer).
However, when he went off to New Orleans to attend college in the fall of 2004, I did start 'peeking' without 'permission'. A word to the wise; you do NOT want to know what your kid gets up to when he goes off to college, and especially when he goes off to college in New Orleans. There is no question in my mind that he would have gone a little hogwild there with or without his LJ, but those were things about which I needed to know zip. I recalled my mother telling me when I was a teenager: "There are some things a parent just doesn't need to know." She was right.
However, he's worked a lot of stuff out of his system, as people will do as they grow older, and now I read his LJ with very little trepidation and a lot of interest. No doubt he does post some stuff for 'friends only', making it hidden to my view, and that's just fine by me.
I think it's inevitable that you're going to 'discover' things about your children that you would just as soon not know, and I think this was the case before the Internet. I know my mother discovered such things about me, and I have certainly discovered such things about my older son, who is not an Internet social networker like his brother.
As for my own postings (I started keeping my own LJ when the son went off to NOLA), it has occurred to me on occasion, that perhaps I wouldn't want something I've written seen by a known audience, and I've been known to delete a post here and there. But it's more that I start thinking the post was a bit silly or not well-worded, as opposed to revealing... revealing of bad writing or a flippant mood, perhaps, but not of personal stuff that I should keep to a select few.