Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Public, Private, and Your Kids...

People often remark to me about how comfortable I am sharing "personal" information online.

Or that I don't have too many "private thoughts."

All I can say after watching Growing Up Online (watch it online) is

YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHING YET

It's a fascinating documentary (the wife of a friend of our family made it) about the world of teenagers online.

Technology is a double-edged sword and the scary stuff (Catch a Predator, etc.) sells, of course.

But, if you have kids coming of age now, even though you may not feel comfortable sharing a lot, you'll need to understand that your kids and their friends will.

You can't resist it. The world has changed too much.

You can't prevent it either.

The "ah hah" moment for me was when one kid said, (though I saw this happen in STL last month)

"I don't like my mom looking over my shoulder, so I just log on from my friends house"

Duh!

At the end of the day, we all need to arm our kids with good judgment and a reason to trust us when things inevitably go wrong.

My recommendation: take the hour to watch this one.

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