A great deal of real and virtual ink has been spilled on social effects of online networking, comprising pros, cons, and mixed opinions and feelings. We are not here to rewind and synthesize the classic talks. Only to dissect a particular case that I encountered these days on the Internet, about a kid mocked by his teen brother and his brother’s friends because of his dedicated involvement with MySpace networking. Since I want to do this in a seminar-like manner, I’ll first present you the case in discussion. I can’t embed the original player here, so I’ll provide the link for the video material.
So, what do you think of that? Pretty discomforting, right? I thought so. It made me reconsider the disruptive effects of online social networking. Does it feed like a predator or a parasite on the back of the social networks in the real life? Does it provide a sanctuary in the face of bad real life relations with people? Is it a shy or handicapped people’s substitute for not being able to build and manage a social network offline? Or can it go in harmony with what’s outside the virtual environment, being a complementary tool and source altogether for practicing social skills, bonding more, learning more, having more fun and extending one’s social networks?
Of course, it can be all of these things. It depends on each specific case and on the manner in which the situation is viewed, handled, and valued. In this case here I’d say the teen team was very mean to the little brother, a specific teenage cruelty, putting a lot of pressure on the kid, making him one against all. Mocking him and laughing of him only makes him go deeper into and defend more fiercely the only world that accepts him and in which he feels comfortable: his MySpace network.
In the end, I’m thinking that parents, no matter how occupied, depending on their family structure and composition, should analyze the relationships within the family, how much each member invests in online networking and what virtual social networks mean to each involved member. So that virtual social environments like MySpace don’t become “a poor excuse for a social life,” but mediums that enrich a child’s life in the first phases of his/her life, when he/she develops bonding skills.
A great deal of real and virtual ink has been spilled on social effects of online networking, comprising pros, cons, and mixed opinions and feelings. We are not here to rewind and synthesize the classic talks. Only to dissect a particular case that I encountered these days on the Internet, about a kid mocked by [...]
Comments
@ 18:00
“So that virtual social environments like MySpace don’t become “a poor excuse for a social life,” but mediums that enrich a child’s life in the first phases of his/her life, when he/she develops bonding skills.”
Isn’t that precisely the time that a child needs a physical community and the embrace of his/her parents? I suspect that the failure of that bonding is what prompted the child in the case study to retreat to the safety of the MySpace “community”.
Marius, the real world is hard to navigate, and difficult to change. But we cannot abandon it to politicians and demagogues who are only too happy to see us at our laptops in our bubbles. And we cannot abandon our children to the corporations who are only too happy to keep us for our eyeballs and page views.
@ 22:51
Hi, Dave.
What you say is very true. I also think the lack of normal, healthy bonding within family and within a real life community is what prompted this kid to be so desperately glued to MySpace. After all, human beings are social beings and they weren’t born since forever with a laptop and an Internet connection at hand. These are new times affecting the social networking aspect of our lives and we have to become wise enough not to be drawn into the machine and have our souls alienated, but to adapt the machine to true human purposes. The machine serves us, it’s not us who should serve the machine.
The kids today cannot avoid online social networking and they also shouldn’t. Parents’ fear of bad consequences should no be a motivator for keeping their kids offline. They are like young puppies who like to play with other puppies and with toys, and the virtual is definitely attractive. I’m thinking that the solution would be a good equilibrium between the off and online lives of our kids.
This way, online social networking can be an effective socializing tool, complementary to real life bonding and not a total, sick substitute of it.
@ 11:54
[...] week’s Carnival host Andrew Grill reviews a Marius Chitosca SmartMobs post and comments: “Over at Smartmobs, there is an interesting discussion about the social [...]
@ 12:49
As a mother (kids currently ages 5-20) I had a *very* hard time watching the boy be bullied by his brother and friends. (I stopped at 4 minutes.) The boy was upset before the teens walked in so they had evidently been harassing the boy prior to starting this video. Who knows what they did or said before they began filming? To me, this video is more revealing about the teens and the effects of their behaviors, not about the boy’s supposed obsession with MySpace.
The need to be accepted by a network of people with whom one feels comfortable is not new. Parents’ engagement with their kids and awareness of the groups they frequent have always been key to raising balanced, healthy, socially-adept children. The only difference now is some social networking occurs online.
Just as parents must stay alert to signs of kids’ involvement with drugs, gangs, truancy, eating disorders, crime, bullying, etc., parents must also watch for any other symptoms indicating a child’s life is getting out of balance. It’s just part of being a good parent.
@ 22:50
Hi, Cindy.
I couldn’t bare to watch all of it myself. I skipped a few minutes to the end. The brother bulling was too aggressive, noisy, annoying and… well, saddening.
You pointed more clearly the concluding idea I tried to sketch: parents are the main filter of a child’s socializing processes. You cannot blame a medium or a cold machine fired up by human use and passion, but the rather the lack of care, attention and understanding within the family.
Ideally, a child should not fight the “mocking monsters” of the family and wish them “to die,” while struggling to compensate online the lack of human warmth and touch.