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Teenagers and the Internet

107 points by hobolobo 13y ago

deleted 13y ago
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- imc 13y ago
  Would you like to explain why? Saying "Lost me right there" doesn't give any information on WHY it lost you.
  - smtddr 13y ago
    oops, sorry. I didn't finish that comment then decided to delete it... but, here it is: CTRL+F this sentence: We have to start asking why they are not being made responsible for it. Lost me right there; that whole paragraph. Sure, talking about what's on the internet to young people is important and should be done. It's one thing for internet-companies to remove content that has been reported and deemed a ToS violation or illegal, but we don't need people turning their personal beliefs/ethics/etc into proactive-internet-filters. I don't exactly love the content on stormfront.org, but I'm not asking the webhost or my ISP or anyone to shut it down or filter it because ThinkOfTheChildren/Terrorists/current-boogeyman. I feel the article focuses a lot on the "problems" with the internet and not so much the problem of parents not ensuring the children have a "balanced"(whatever that means) world view. disclaimer/preempt: I have a daughter.
djent 13y ago
I'm a teenager, and from my own experience, teenagers will do idiotic things even without the Internet. Pointing the finger at the Internet for parents' problems with their children is an easy thing to do because the Internet can't defend itself, especially as a whole.
- acallaghan 13y ago
  In the 60's the teenager label emerged. These were just kids that had found a sense of community in sharing music, rebellion against the system, and unique dress. There's nothing new here. Teenagers will be rebellious, as they always have. If the older people in society find ways to prevent them from accessing material they want to see, they'll just find another way. Teenagers have their own tastes in what the internet provides, and that interests/excites them, through social media, and other specific sites (like ask.fm). Nothing around this is new. Saying we should protect the poor teenagers is very demeaning to a group that are becoming adults, and protecting them by censorship helps no one in our society.
  - Cthulhu_ 13y ago
    And yet, before the 60's and before the rise of proper education, teenagers went to work after elementary school (if that) and became mature, responsible adults much sooner. At least, so I heard. They couldn't get together and have orgies or whatever, because they were expected to be either at work, or back at work at 6 AM. [/faux history teacher]
    - superuser2 13y ago
      Work now requires more education. A PhD student is not less mature than a bachelors student just because he's in school for more years. He doesn't lose the right to make decisions for himself. Prolonging the socially defined period of childhood didn't magically rewire brain chemistry.
- andrelaszlo 13y ago
  Somehow I feel like these things happened even before the Internet (crazy idea, I know) but now we have documentation.
- muhfreedoms 13y ago
  I agree, I've lived in different slums in South America for a couple of years where Internet access at home is a rare thing. Teenagers have to go to cybercafes and not everyone has the money to do so every single day. They still indulge in idiotic activities with or without the help of the Internet.
- chrisdone 13y ago
  Oddly, I was a teenager, too. The mistake some members of the adult generation make, and have always made, is thinking that, or acting as though (and that is an easy cop out), the current teen generation is fundamentally different to their own.
  - lucozade 13y ago
    Some members of the adult generation i.e. me are concerned that the current generation is no different from their own. I'd hate to think how distracted I'd have been with access to everything my children have. Having said that, I'm not sure the discussion is advanced much by either highlighting incredibly extreme cases or cases that just happen to involve technology (being sent down from Oxford for dissolute behaviour has a long history).
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
nicholassmith 13y ago
It's interesting, the Internet has become a micro-society and people are beginning to have expectations that the major players have a responsibility to perform a similar service as that of a government (contributing resources to fight child porn as the example made), whilst also expecting governments to rule it. Can we have it both ways? And should we expect that as a norm? The internet doesn't have a morality, it's a tool and usage is defined clearly by the user. The fact that more teenage boys are accessing pornography and have warped approaches to conventional relationships is a problem, but how much of a problem is it due to the internet? My generation (approaching 30) were among the first to have always on, reasonably high speed internet and yes that did mean easy access to pornography but despite that the majority of us are in long term relationships. I think there's a lot to be made of how the internet has impacted modern society, but it doesn't exist in a single point of impact. There's also a dozen other factors that have to be taken into account, ranging from parents being less available due to increased workloads to an education system that's not encouraging people to want to learn.
- pitt1980 13y ago
  " My generation (approaching 30) were among the first to have always on, reasonably high speed internet and yes that did mean easy access to pornography but despite that the majority of us are in long term relationships." My impression is that this generation has historical low levels of involvement in long term relationships and family formation (not arguing that causality is internet porn ---> people don't get married, but it's an interesting data point)
  - nicholassmith 13y ago
    Sure, marriage does seem to be down amongst the people I know in long term relationships but that mostly seems to be (in my circle) down to apathy about the concept, as they deem it pointless. "Who needs paper and a £10k party to show your love?" sort of thing. There's a big melting pot of changes in our society, and I do think the internet has played a part as has changing opinions on religion, finance and wealth and so on.
dtf 13y ago
Both The Guardian and The Daily Mail, who enjoy huge web audiences, and who campaign passionately for freedom of the press, also campaign incessantly against freedom of expression on the internet, giving our politicians the wide political grip they need to clamp down on technology. It's ironic how much these two papers can be alike sometimes.
3pt14159 13y ago
I've had the internet for twenty years (since I was 8) and computer access since I was 3. Most of my friends had access since they were 10 or 11. We turned out fine. Some kids who have poor role models are going to ask for oral sex from boys or girls that like them. This was true 3000 years ago. It is true today. It will be true twenty years from now regardless of what silly idea the person who made the documentary has. "Part regulation, part cultural shift." Please. I'm not taking any more "think of the children" arguments for laws. Also, I'm sick and tired of "child porn" including 14-18 year olds. It isn't child porn. They arn't children. They are teenagers. Some of them have been having sex for years. It should be a different offence to posses and it should not be an offence to posses if you were in a loving relationship (and similar in age, a 14 year old and a 16 or 17 year old, not a 40 year old and a 14 year old). You know those dirty letters you got from your sweetheart when you were 17? Sexting is the same damn thing.
- ttt_ 13y ago
  >> Most of my friends had access since they were 10 or 11. We turned out fine. Much akin to "when we were kids we rode in the front seat without seat belts on, we turned out fine", and several other versions of that phrase. I don't think it's a valid argument at all.
  - bennyg 13y ago
    I don't think your point's valid either. Driving is operating heavy machinery, plain and simple. Driving without a seatbelt is totally different than using Facebook, or eBay, or Craigslist, unrestricted. They really couldn't be more dissimilar.
    - themstheones 13y ago
      No one is going to get into trouble on craigslist. What's the worst that could happen, buying a couch with bedbugs?
      - mattdeboard 13y ago
scrrr 13y ago
Apparently there's some proof that too much pornography is bad for you. [1] Not too mention all the multitasking. Other than that the Internet is like every other thing. It has good and bad sides. I, for one, have faith in teenagers. They'll turn out alright. It's usually the old folks that make the bigger/worse mistakes. [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSF82AwSDiU
- Sagat 13y ago
  But it's the teenagers who turn into those old folks. So they don't turn out alright.
navait 13y ago
It's unfortunate that answers to internet pornography always come in the form of these unworkable filters. Politicians can only justify censoring pornography as "Parent's don't want their kids to see it!", rather than acknowledge it as a public health problem. After seeing some of my friends fall prey to porn addiction, I think the sheer amount of porn on the internet is a problem. When porn was something you had to go get on your own, you were limited to a small selection. However, now new and harder materials are avalible instantly, and it creates a feedback loop where people can't have sex without it. Really, a better answer would be to discuss pornography addiction as part of the sexual education curriculum, but too many people would consider it "teaching children porn".
- unimpressive 13y ago
  >a better answer would be to discuss pornography addiction as part of the sexual education curriculum, but too many people would consider it "teaching children porn". Sort of like how DARE teaches children drugs?
  - 67726e 13y ago
    About that.... > the program was sometimes counterproductive in some populations, with those who graduated from D.A.R.E. later having higher than average rates of drug use http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_Abuse_Resistance_Education#2001_-_Surgeon_General_categorizes_D.A.R.E._.22Ineffective_Primary_Prevention_Programs.22 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_Abuse_Resistance_Education...
    - unimpressive 13y ago
      Normally the phrasing I used indicates satire. In my case I was entirely serious. (That is, I'm well aware that DARE does in fact seem to teach drugs.)
- cm2012 13y ago
  While the evidence seems to suggest that some people do get addicted to porn, the vast majority do not.
chrisdone 13y ago
As usual mass media newspapers, or the shadow left thereof, are decades out of touch with subject matter that has been covered in the blogosphere extensively, making the same old observations (“warped perceptions of women/sex/life/etc.”) that were made about television and games in past eras, treating their audience like sheltered idiots. I don't know why anyone reads this tripe or bothers to watch these ‘documentaries’.
tomstuart 13y ago
Ugh, “the girl who let herself be gang raped”? I expect much better than this from the Guardian.
- mmariani 13y ago
  Expect, and get disappointed. Humans simply cannot be perfect at all times. Eventually, we all fuck up. Expect that and you won't be much disappointed.
- adrenalinup 13y ago
  Ugh, I couldn't read past this. Fuck you the Guardian..
- diydsp 13y ago
  Yeah, then you read the article and it says "molested." I went back to verify this and couldn't find it (!). Until I searched for "gang" instead... That's when I found The Guardian had changed the wording in the last few hours! If you scroll down to the bottom you'll find this: "The standfirst to this article was amended on 12 September 2013. It originally referred to a girl who "let herself be gang-raped" to get her BlackBerry back. The misrepresented the text of the piece, which says she allowed herself to be sexually assaulted." So, go ahead and blame technologists for allowing the internet to cater to our more prurient interests, but the newspaperpeople seem to the ones directly responsible.
jpswade 13y ago
The Internet isn't the problem here, consumption is, just like TV wasn't the problem 20 years ago, or computer games wasn't 10 years ago. Let us not forget the 7 deadly sins: Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, Pride. Teenagers simply aren't equipped to deal with these issues like adults are, hell even some adults struggle.
- mordae 13y ago
  It's not Pride, it's Vanity.
  - jpswade 13y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins#Pride https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins#Pride
    - mordae 13y ago
      Pride can have positive connotations, vanity not.
      - jpswade 13y ago
        I'm aware of how words work.
zokier 13y ago
Bit off-topic, but interesting that in this sentence: > Kidron, who carries lightly the title Baroness for her pioneering work not just in making such films as the BBC's Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit but in spreading the narrative wonder of great movies to schoolkids across the country through her FilmClub, says that many of her friends have said the same thing where would you except the "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit" link to lead? Maybe another Guardian article about the film? Wikipedia? IMDB? Homepage of the film? Trailer? I for one would not have excepted a credible paper like Guardian link to a crappy and most likely illegimate rip of the film. That's barely above linking directly to The PirateBay.
msluyter 13y ago
Given the absence of real data (as in, studies that demonstrate conclusively that watching too much online porn has certain downsides), it's not surprising that a lot of comments are resorting to anecdotal reasoning of the form: "Well, I use the internet and I'm ok..." Nonetheless, I think it's worth entertaining the hypothesis that in many ways the internet is like candy for your brain, and constant exposure might have subtle -- perhaps not yet fully recognized or appreciated -- effects on our cognition. We're running a vast uncontrolled experiment, and when things go wrong we (tech elites) tend to dismiss it with some variation of "Well, they had mental health issues or a parental problems or they would have been bullied anyway etc... etc... etc... It couldn't have been the internet." The problem is that these are the same sorts of arguments that have been deployed in the face of every technological advance. "It's not that video games are addictive, it's that people already prone to addiction choose to become addicted to video games. 100 years ago they would have been addicted to whist." I find this to be rather unpersuasive, generally, but I'm honestly also at a loss to articulate a compelling counterargument of my own. I have vague misgivings and a handful of anecdotes and not a lot of sound science.
- Cthulhu_ 13y ago
  > Nonetheless, I think it's worth entertaining the hypothesis that in many ways the internet is like candy for your brain, and constant exposure might have subtle -- perhaps not yet fully recognized or appreciated -- effects on our cognition. It does, actually. Read Nicholas Carr's 'The Shallows' [0], it's a pretty decent book about the subject. It also starts off with comparing our usage of the internet with the rise of reading - you know, books and the like. History lesson; humans needed to adapt their brains to be able to read attentively for longer periods of time. The book contrasts that with the ADD nature of the internet, and yet, indicates how it's actually going back to where we were before. Or just a change similar to when books became publicly accessible. tl;dr, yes there is a change, but I don't think it's necessarily good or bad; just different. And shocking / to be resisted by the older generation, just as how their parents were shocked and resisting the Beatles and similar long-haired freaks. :p [0]: http://www.amazon.com/The-Shallows-Internet-Doing-Brains/dp/0393339750 http://www.amazon.com/The-Shallows-Internet-Doing-Brains/dp/...
- 13y ago
throwaway43210 13y ago
I am a teenager who was watching internet porn daily. I was forced to stop during a 2 week long holiday in which I shared a room with my family and had limited internet access. I immediately started noticing girls more and being more outgoing in life. I know this is anecdotal evidence, but I can't help but feel like it is unnatural to masturbate so often. I think those chemicals in our body help us function and relate during crucial years and that such easy access to internet pornography is upsetting some balance.
smackay 13y ago
The only practical approach is to give teenagers the tools necessary to deal with this and make sensible decisions based on their own values and respect for others (as if being a teenager wasn't hard enough already). However, good luck in getting PE (Porn Education) taught to ten-year olds, never mind being able to filter out all the agendas of concerned parties and being able to create the materials necessary with essentially nothing to base it on - in terms of the effects it's having on teenagers development. The ship of consequences sailed a long time ago on this one and it's not clear where it's headed.
isolated 13y ago
Those men who retain their privacy by abdicating social media pay an impossible price. The gradual fade of their relationships and social livelihood. Only one who has spent so long starved by it's lack that their ache has forgotten to bother them can hope to pay it. Thankfully current business is email. But our peers are eager to change that. Tales of young women giving themselves to multiple men is a common trope in hysterical portrayals of social ills. If one would like an example of what these tropes look like, 'Reefer Madness' is on netflix. This article almost reads like a paid endorsement of david camerons internet filter. It is a outrageous story about internet porn, men who dare anonymity, and youth corrupting youth designed to generate panic in the minds of ordinary men. I have no idea what the situation is in the UK, but I know I've never been invited to any sex parties. Nor have I ever heard of such a thing happening in my area. This might be because such sex parties don't exist, or because men who obviously wouldn't participate aren't invited. But then, who can argue with such wonderful anecdotes?
cbhl 13y ago
If I live outside of the UK, what's the right way to go about seeing "In Real Life" legally? There appears to have been a showing at the Toronto International Film Festival on Monday, but apart from that there appears to be nothing.
simias 13y ago
I've always thought the problem was letting kids alone on the net. You wouldn't let you kid alone in a shaddy neighborhood for hours without checking up on them, would you? So why do exactly that with the internet? I think the main problem with the web is that it makes you lose your right to be forgotten. Think of those kids who post stupid videos of themselves on youtube that go viral. It won't go away, people will be able to find that 10, 20 years from now in New York, Paris or Tokyo.
- superuser2 13y ago
  Would it have been okay for your parents to wiretap your phone? No? Then why is it okay to demand to read your children's private conversations? I am terrified we're going to have a generation of kids who have no concept of private. Who've never been allowed to speak or be curious about anything their parents wouldn't approve of. Who are used to having to explain conversations and reading to people who were never supposed to be part of them. Parental Thought Police are orders of magnitude more terrifying than state Thought Police. Can you imagine an adult who has never had a private experience as a child? Maybe to a collectivist culture, that isn't so scary, but to me it's dystopian.
  - simias 13y ago
    My phone? I didn't have a cell phone while growing up, the only phone at home was in the living room. So no wiretapping really needed... And seriously, your parents aren't the NSA. Of course they should do what you are doing and of course you will do what you can so that they don't find out. It doesn't mean having a GPS tracker on you at all times. I stand by my original point: the internet can be a very dangerous place filled with strangers, it's irresponsible to let your kids browse it unsupervised.
    - superuser2 13y ago
      Funny you mention GPS, because lots of parents do exactly that. https://wbillpay.verizonwireless.com/vzw/nos/safeguards/SafeguardProductDetails.action?productName=familylocator https://wbillpay.verizonwireless.com/vzw/nos/safeguards/Safe... As far as the phone, I guess houses with one central telephone aren't really what I'm talking about, so much as Bye Bye Birdie "The Telephone Hour"-type situations. Teenage girls in the 50s and 60s were able to talk about boys, criticize authority figures, and generally be themselves and develop as their own people using technology without supervision or censorship. You probably didn't have that experience, but my parents did, and it would have been creepy and invasive then for their parents to demand to be part of those conversations, just like it's creepy and invasive now. The NSA is (ostensibly) only looking for terrorist plots. Your parents are looking for criticism, attitude, impure thoughts, differing political beliefs, ingratitude, and a whole bunch of other things that are part of being a young human being. There is no question in my mind that given the choice, I'd take the NSA. You know what else is a dangerous place filled with strangers? School. Sidewalks. Libraries. Not just strangers, but dangerous ideas. College. Especially college. At some point kids have to learn to navigate those things independently, lest they self-destruct the moment the leash is removed. Not as 5-year-olds, sure, but definitely by 16/17 (depending on maturity, of course).
teeja 13y ago
It's great that someone so attentive to teens is candidly exploring this subject on film. Unfortunate that it seems to be focussed primarily on negatives. Yes I spend a lot of time on the net: unlike the TV which consumed thousands of passive, scripted hours in my youth, the net is interactive, the outcome within my control. For most of my life, the many things I couldn't learn more about for lack of time or helpful resources were out of reach; the amplification is awesome. For most of my life, I had to imagine being connected with communities of shared interests, never imagining having the focussing luxury of needing to choose from among them. Those changes in my life are all positives. So while teens are doing teenish things with this tech, they are learning - just as we adults are. And when they become parents, they'll know from experience (just as in the middle ages and in the 1800s and 1950s) the impact of these new things. The social impact of emergent technologies has always been unpredictable. Luckily humans adapt. And so far, ever since the first piece of flint changed lives, we've muddled on somehow. Not that worry-warting is worthless; reflection is in fact the mother of adaptation.
pjc50 13y ago
Do bear in mind that there are effectively two alternatives: - uncontrolled internet access, where other people's kids have access to a lot of awful stuff (not just porn but "shock" videos; goatse and worse) - State- or business- controlled internet access, where someone else gets to control what you see, potentially eliminating access to inconvenient stories like Snowden. We could really do with a "third way", but it needs someone to imagine what it could be, how it could work, and how it avoids the usual attempts to ruin it for everyone.
zwieback 13y ago
Or maybe the reality is a lot less interesting: a tiny percentage of teens will go off the rails, a tiny percentage will benefit hugely and the vast majority will do stupid things and reach adulthood more or less unscathed.
peterwwillis 13y ago
The Internet is not to blame. "One of the motivators for me making the film was that a friend of my daughter came round to talk to me about a boy she had her eye on and he said she could be his girlfriend if she gave him a blowjob." How can any rational person believe this is different from 40 years ago? You don't think teenage guys were asking for blowjobs in the 70s?! The sexual pseudo-revolution changed our society's norms forever, well before the internet, and modern ADULT culture keeps them alive in ways that affect young people. Really, adults should be looking at themselves as the reason for why kids act the way they do. But what adult would possibly blame themselves for what they can blame on the internet? "Most of the responsibility has to lie, however, she thinks, with the corporations." And telephone companies should be held accountable if someone calls you bad words on the phone. Look, there is a certain amount of personal responsibility that parents and our society as a whole have to take on, because no amount of litigiousness will stop people from behaving badly. Social change requires social change.

107 points by hobolobo 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

imc 13y ago
Would you like to explain why? Saying "Lost me right there" doesn't give any information on WHY it lost you.
- smtddr 13y ago
  oops, sorry. I didn't finish that comment then decided to delete it... but, here it is: CTRL+F this sentence: We have to start asking why they are not being made responsible for it. Lost me right there; that whole paragraph. Sure, talking about what's on the internet to young people is important and should be done. It's one thing for internet-companies to remove content that has been reported and deemed a ToS violation or illegal, but we don't need people turning their personal beliefs/ethics/etc into proactive-internet-filters. I don't exactly love the content on stormfront.org, but I'm not asking the webhost or my ISP or anyone to shut it down or filter it because ThinkOfTheChildren/Terrorists/current-boogeyman. I feel the article focuses a lot on the "problems" with the internet and not so much the problem of parents not ensuring the children have a "balanced"(whatever that means) world view. disclaimer/preempt: I have a daughter.

djent 13y ago

I'm a teenager, and from my own experience, teenagers will do idiotic things even without the Internet. Pointing the finger at the Internet for parents' problems with their children is an easy thing to do because the Internet can't defend itself, especially as a whole.

acallaghan 13y ago
In the 60's the teenager label emerged. These were just kids that had found a sense of community in sharing music, rebellion against the system, and unique dress. There's nothing new here. Teenagers will be rebellious, as they always have. If the older people in society find ways to prevent them from accessing material they want to see, they'll just find another way. Teenagers have their own tastes in what the internet provides, and that interests/excites them, through social media, and other specific sites (like ask.fm). Nothing around this is new. Saying we should protect the poor teenagers is very demeaning to a group that are becoming adults, and protecting them by censorship helps no one in our society.
- Cthulhu_ 13y ago
  And yet, before the 60's and before the rise of proper education, teenagers went to work after elementary school (if that) and became mature, responsible adults much sooner. At least, so I heard. They couldn't get together and have orgies or whatever, because they were expected to be either at work, or back at work at 6 AM. [/faux history teacher]
  - superuser2 13y ago
    Work now requires more education. A PhD student is not less mature than a bachelors student just because he's in school for more years. He doesn't lose the right to make decisions for himself. Prolonging the socially defined period of childhood didn't magically rewire brain chemistry.
andrelaszlo 13y ago
Somehow I feel like these things happened even before the Internet (crazy idea, I know) but now we have documentation.
muhfreedoms 13y ago
I agree, I've lived in different slums in South America for a couple of years where Internet access at home is a rare thing. Teenagers have to go to cybercafes and not everyone has the money to do so every single day. They still indulge in idiotic activities with or without the help of the Internet.
chrisdone 13y ago
Oddly, I was a teenager, too. The mistake some members of the adult generation make, and have always made, is thinking that, or acting as though (and that is an easy cop out), the current teen generation is fundamentally different to their own.
- lucozade 13y ago
  Some members of the adult generation i.e. me are concerned that the current generation is no different from their own. I'd hate to think how distracted I'd have been with access to everything my children have. Having said that, I'm not sure the discussion is advanced much by either highlighting incredibly extreme cases or cases that just happen to involve technology (being sent down from Oxford for dissolute behaviour has a long history).

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

nicholassmith 13y ago

It's interesting, the Internet has become a micro-society and people are beginning to have expectations that the major players have a responsibility to perform a similar service as that of a government (contributing resources to fight child porn as the example made), whilst also expecting governments to rule it. Can we have it both ways? And should we expect that as a norm? The internet doesn't have a morality, it's a tool and usage is defined clearly by the user. The fact that more teenage boys are accessing pornography and have warped approaches to conventional relationships is a problem, but how much of a problem is it due to the internet? My generation (approaching 30) were among the first to have always on, reasonably high speed internet and yes that did mean easy access to pornography but despite that the majority of us are in long term relationships. I think there's a lot to be made of how the internet has impacted modern society, but it doesn't exist in a single point of impact. There's also a dozen other factors that have to be taken into account, ranging from parents being less available due to increased workloads to an education system that's not encouraging people to want to learn.

pitt1980 13y ago
" My generation (approaching 30) were among the first to have always on, reasonably high speed internet and yes that did mean easy access to pornography but despite that the majority of us are in long term relationships." My impression is that this generation has historical low levels of involvement in long term relationships and family formation (not arguing that causality is internet porn ---> people don't get married, but it's an interesting data point)
- nicholassmith 13y ago
  Sure, marriage does seem to be down amongst the people I know in long term relationships but that mostly seems to be (in my circle) down to apathy about the concept, as they deem it pointless. "Who needs paper and a £10k party to show your love?" sort of thing. There's a big melting pot of changes in our society, and I do think the internet has played a part as has changing opinions on religion, finance and wealth and so on.

dtf 13y ago

Both The Guardian and The Daily Mail, who enjoy huge web audiences, and who campaign passionately for freedom of the press, also campaign incessantly against freedom of expression on the internet, giving our politicians the wide political grip they need to clamp down on technology. It's ironic how much these two papers can be alike sometimes.

3pt14159 13y ago

I've had the internet for twenty years (since I was 8) and computer access since I was 3. Most of my friends had access since they were 10 or 11. We turned out fine. Some kids who have poor role models are going to ask for oral sex from boys or girls that like them. This was true 3000 years ago. It is true today. It will be true twenty years from now regardless of what silly idea the person who made the documentary has. "Part regulation, part cultural shift." Please. I'm not taking any more "think of the children" arguments for laws. Also, I'm sick and tired of "child porn" including 14-18 year olds. It isn't child porn. They arn't children. They are teenagers. Some of them have been having sex for years. It should be a different offence to posses and it should not be an offence to posses if you were in a loving relationship (and similar in age, a 14 year old and a 16 or 17 year old, not a 40 year old and a 14 year old). You know those dirty letters you got from your sweetheart when you were 17? Sexting is the same damn thing.

ttt_ 13y ago
>> Most of my friends had access since they were 10 or 11. We turned out fine. Much akin to "when we were kids we rode in the front seat without seat belts on, we turned out fine", and several other versions of that phrase. I don't think it's a valid argument at all.
- bennyg 13y ago
  I don't think your point's valid either. Driving is operating heavy machinery, plain and simple. Driving without a seatbelt is totally different than using Facebook, or eBay, or Craigslist, unrestricted. They really couldn't be more dissimilar.
  - themstheones 13y ago
    No one is going to get into trouble on craigslist. What's the worst that could happen, buying a couch with bedbugs?
    - mattdeboard 13y ago

scrrr 13y ago

Apparently there's some proof that too much pornography is bad for you. [1] Not too mention all the multitasking. Other than that the Internet is like every other thing. It has good and bad sides. I, for one, have faith in teenagers. They'll turn out alright. It's usually the old folks that make the bigger/worse mistakes. [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSF82AwSDiU

Sagat 13y ago
But it's the teenagers who turn into those old folks. So they don't turn out alright.

navait 13y ago

It's unfortunate that answers to internet pornography always come in the form of these unworkable filters. Politicians can only justify censoring pornography as "Parent's don't want their kids to see it!", rather than acknowledge it as a public health problem. After seeing some of my friends fall prey to porn addiction, I think the sheer amount of porn on the internet is a problem. When porn was something you had to go get on your own, you were limited to a small selection. However, now new and harder materials are avalible instantly, and it creates a feedback loop where people can't have sex without it. Really, a better answer would be to discuss pornography addiction as part of the sexual education curriculum, but too many people would consider it "teaching children porn".

unimpressive 13y ago
>a better answer would be to discuss pornography addiction as part of the sexual education curriculum, but too many people would consider it "teaching children porn". Sort of like how DARE teaches children drugs?
- 67726e 13y ago
  About that.... > the program was sometimes counterproductive in some populations, with those who graduated from D.A.R.E. later having higher than average rates of drug use http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_Abuse_Resistance_Education#2001_-_Surgeon_General_categorizes_D.A.R.E._.22Ineffective_Primary_Prevention_Programs.22 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_Abuse_Resistance_Education...
  - unimpressive 13y ago
    Normally the phrasing I used indicates satire. In my case I was entirely serious. (That is, I'm well aware that DARE does in fact seem to teach drugs.)
cm2012 13y ago
While the evidence seems to suggest that some people do get addicted to porn, the vast majority do not.

chrisdone 13y ago

As usual mass media newspapers, or the shadow left thereof, are decades out of touch with subject matter that has been covered in the blogosphere extensively, making the same old observations (“warped perceptions of women/sex/life/etc.”) that were made about television and games in past eras, treating their audience like sheltered idiots. I don't know why anyone reads this tripe or bothers to watch these ‘documentaries’.

tomstuart 13y ago

Ugh, “the girl who let herself be gang raped”? I expect much better than this from the Guardian.

mmariani 13y ago
Expect, and get disappointed. Humans simply cannot be perfect at all times. Eventually, we all fuck up. Expect that and you won't be much disappointed.
adrenalinup 13y ago
Ugh, I couldn't read past this. Fuck you the Guardian..
diydsp 13y ago
Yeah, then you read the article and it says "molested." I went back to verify this and couldn't find it (!). Until I searched for "gang" instead... That's when I found The Guardian had changed the wording in the last few hours! If you scroll down to the bottom you'll find this: "The standfirst to this article was amended on 12 September 2013. It originally referred to a girl who "let herself be gang-raped" to get her BlackBerry back. The misrepresented the text of the piece, which says she allowed herself to be sexually assaulted." So, go ahead and blame technologists for allowing the internet to cater to our more prurient interests, but the newspaperpeople seem to the ones directly responsible.

jpswade 13y ago

The Internet isn't the problem here, consumption is, just like TV wasn't the problem 20 years ago, or computer games wasn't 10 years ago. Let us not forget the 7 deadly sins: Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, Pride. Teenagers simply aren't equipped to deal with these issues like adults are, hell even some adults struggle.

mordae 13y ago
It's not Pride, it's Vanity.
- jpswade 13y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins#Pride https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins#Pride
  - mordae 13y ago
    Pride can have positive connotations, vanity not.
    - jpswade 13y ago
      I'm aware of how words work.

zokier 13y ago

Bit off-topic, but interesting that in this sentence: > Kidron, who carries lightly the title Baroness for her pioneering work not just in making such films as the BBC's Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit but in spreading the narrative wonder of great movies to schoolkids across the country through her FilmClub, says that many of her friends have said the same thing where would you except the "Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit" link to lead? Maybe another Guardian article about the film? Wikipedia? IMDB? Homepage of the film? Trailer? I for one would not have excepted a credible paper like Guardian link to a crappy and most likely illegimate rip of the film. That's barely above linking directly to The PirateBay.

msluyter 13y ago

Given the absence of real data (as in, studies that demonstrate conclusively that watching too much online porn has certain downsides), it's not surprising that a lot of comments are resorting to anecdotal reasoning of the form: "Well, I use the internet and I'm ok..." Nonetheless, I think it's worth entertaining the hypothesis that in many ways the internet is like candy for your brain, and constant exposure might have subtle -- perhaps not yet fully recognized or appreciated -- effects on our cognition. We're running a vast uncontrolled experiment, and when things go wrong we (tech elites) tend to dismiss it with some variation of "Well, they had mental health issues or a parental problems or they would have been bullied anyway etc... etc... etc... It couldn't have been the internet." The problem is that these are the same sorts of arguments that have been deployed in the face of every technological advance. "It's not that video games are addictive, it's that people already prone to addiction choose to become addicted to video games. 100 years ago they would have been addicted to whist." I find this to be rather unpersuasive, generally, but I'm honestly also at a loss to articulate a compelling counterargument of my own. I have vague misgivings and a handful of anecdotes and not a lot of sound science.

Cthulhu_ 13y ago
> Nonetheless, I think it's worth entertaining the hypothesis that in many ways the internet is like candy for your brain, and constant exposure might have subtle -- perhaps not yet fully recognized or appreciated -- effects on our cognition. It does, actually. Read Nicholas Carr's 'The Shallows' [0], it's a pretty decent book about the subject. It also starts off with comparing our usage of the internet with the rise of reading - you know, books and the like. History lesson; humans needed to adapt their brains to be able to read attentively for longer periods of time. The book contrasts that with the ADD nature of the internet, and yet, indicates how it's actually going back to where we were before. Or just a change similar to when books became publicly accessible. tl;dr, yes there is a change, but I don't think it's necessarily good or bad; just different. And shocking / to be resisted by the older generation, just as how their parents were shocked and resisting the Beatles and similar long-haired freaks. :p [0]: http://www.amazon.com/The-Shallows-Internet-Doing-Brains/dp/0393339750 http://www.amazon.com/The-Shallows-Internet-Doing-Brains/dp/...
13y ago

throwaway43210 13y ago

I am a teenager who was watching internet porn daily. I was forced to stop during a 2 week long holiday in which I shared a room with my family and had limited internet access. I immediately started noticing girls more and being more outgoing in life. I know this is anecdotal evidence, but I can't help but feel like it is unnatural to masturbate so often. I think those chemicals in our body help us function and relate during crucial years and that such easy access to internet pornography is upsetting some balance.

smackay 13y ago

The only practical approach is to give teenagers the tools necessary to deal with this and make sensible decisions based on their own values and respect for others (as if being a teenager wasn't hard enough already). However, good luck in getting PE (Porn Education) taught to ten-year olds, never mind being able to filter out all the agendas of concerned parties and being able to create the materials necessary with essentially nothing to base it on - in terms of the effects it's having on teenagers development. The ship of consequences sailed a long time ago on this one and it's not clear where it's headed.

isolated 13y ago

Those men who retain their privacy by abdicating social media pay an impossible price. The gradual fade of their relationships and social livelihood. Only one who has spent so long starved by it's lack that their ache has forgotten to bother them can hope to pay it. Thankfully current business is email. But our peers are eager to change that. Tales of young women giving themselves to multiple men is a common trope in hysterical portrayals of social ills. If one would like an example of what these tropes look like, 'Reefer Madness' is on netflix. This article almost reads like a paid endorsement of david camerons internet filter. It is a outrageous story about internet porn, men who dare anonymity, and youth corrupting youth designed to generate panic in the minds of ordinary men. I have no idea what the situation is in the UK, but I know I've never been invited to any sex parties. Nor have I ever heard of such a thing happening in my area. This might be because such sex parties don't exist, or because men who obviously wouldn't participate aren't invited. But then, who can argue with such wonderful anecdotes?

cbhl 13y ago

If I live outside of the UK, what's the right way to go about seeing "In Real Life" legally? There appears to have been a showing at the Toronto International Film Festival on Monday, but apart from that there appears to be nothing.

simias 13y ago

I've always thought the problem was letting kids alone on the net. You wouldn't let you kid alone in a shaddy neighborhood for hours without checking up on them, would you? So why do exactly that with the internet? I think the main problem with the web is that it makes you lose your right to be forgotten. Think of those kids who post stupid videos of themselves on youtube that go viral. It won't go away, people will be able to find that 10, 20 years from now in New York, Paris or Tokyo.

superuser2 13y ago
Would it have been okay for your parents to wiretap your phone? No? Then why is it okay to demand to read your children's private conversations? I am terrified we're going to have a generation of kids who have no concept of private. Who've never been allowed to speak or be curious about anything their parents wouldn't approve of. Who are used to having to explain conversations and reading to people who were never supposed to be part of them. Parental Thought Police are orders of magnitude more terrifying than state Thought Police. Can you imagine an adult who has never had a private experience as a child? Maybe to a collectivist culture, that isn't so scary, but to me it's dystopian.
- simias 13y ago
  My phone? I didn't have a cell phone while growing up, the only phone at home was in the living room. So no wiretapping really needed... And seriously, your parents aren't the NSA. Of course they should do what you are doing and of course you will do what you can so that they don't find out. It doesn't mean having a GPS tracker on you at all times. I stand by my original point: the internet can be a very dangerous place filled with strangers, it's irresponsible to let your kids browse it unsupervised.
  - superuser2 13y ago
    Funny you mention GPS, because lots of parents do exactly that. https://wbillpay.verizonwireless.com/vzw/nos/safeguards/SafeguardProductDetails.action?productName=familylocator https://wbillpay.verizonwireless.com/vzw/nos/safeguards/Safe... As far as the phone, I guess houses with one central telephone aren't really what I'm talking about, so much as Bye Bye Birdie "The Telephone Hour"-type situations. Teenage girls in the 50s and 60s were able to talk about boys, criticize authority figures, and generally be themselves and develop as their own people using technology without supervision or censorship. You probably didn't have that experience, but my parents did, and it would have been creepy and invasive then for their parents to demand to be part of those conversations, just like it's creepy and invasive now. The NSA is (ostensibly) only looking for terrorist plots. Your parents are looking for criticism, attitude, impure thoughts, differing political beliefs, ingratitude, and a whole bunch of other things that are part of being a young human being. There is no question in my mind that given the choice, I'd take the NSA. You know what else is a dangerous place filled with strangers? School. Sidewalks. Libraries. Not just strangers, but dangerous ideas. College. Especially college. At some point kids have to learn to navigate those things independently, lest they self-destruct the moment the leash is removed. Not as 5-year-olds, sure, but definitely by 16/17 (depending on maturity, of course).

teeja 13y ago

It's great that someone so attentive to teens is candidly exploring this subject on film. Unfortunate that it seems to be focussed primarily on negatives. Yes I spend a lot of time on the net: unlike the TV which consumed thousands of passive, scripted hours in my youth, the net is interactive, the outcome within my control. For most of my life, the many things I couldn't learn more about for lack of time or helpful resources were out of reach; the amplification is awesome. For most of my life, I had to imagine being connected with communities of shared interests, never imagining having the focussing luxury of needing to choose from among them. Those changes in my life are all positives. So while teens are doing teenish things with this tech, they are learning - just as we adults are. And when they become parents, they'll know from experience (just as in the middle ages and in the 1800s and 1950s) the impact of these new things. The social impact of emergent technologies has always been unpredictable. Luckily humans adapt. And so far, ever since the first piece of flint changed lives, we've muddled on somehow. Not that worry-warting is worthless; reflection is in fact the mother of adaptation.

pjc50 13y ago

Do bear in mind that there are effectively two alternatives: - uncontrolled internet access, where other people's kids have access to a lot of awful stuff (not just porn but "shock" videos; goatse and worse) - State- or business- controlled internet access, where someone else gets to control what you see, potentially eliminating access to inconvenient stories like Snowden. We could really do with a "third way", but it needs someone to imagine what it could be, how it could work, and how it avoids the usual attempts to ruin it for everyone.

zwieback 13y ago

Or maybe the reality is a lot less interesting: a tiny percentage of teens will go off the rails, a tiny percentage will benefit hugely and the vast majority will do stupid things and reach adulthood more or less unscathed.

peterwwillis 13y ago

The Internet is not to blame. "One of the motivators for me making the film was that a friend of my daughter came round to talk to me about a boy she had her eye on and he said she could be his girlfriend if she gave him a blowjob." How can any rational person believe this is different from 40 years ago? You don't think teenage guys were asking for blowjobs in the 70s?! The sexual pseudo-revolution changed our society's norms forever, well before the internet, and modern ADULT culture keeps them alive in ways that affect young people. Really, adults should be looking at themselves as the reason for why kids act the way they do. But what adult would possibly blame themselves for what they can blame on the internet? "Most of the responsibility has to lie, however, she thinks, with the corporations." And telephone companies should be held accountable if someone calls you bad words on the phone. Look, there is a certain amount of personal responsibility that parents and our society as a whole have to take on, because no amount of litigiousness will stop people from behaving badly. Social change requires social change.