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Interests: Alfons Mucha, Archibald Leach, big words, Bob Hicok, Brian Eno, Cat Power, Charles Bukowski, Charlotte Masaryk, cheese, clarity, dark chocolate, David Byrne, David Foster Wallace, Dorothy Parker, Douglas Adams, Edna St. Vincent Millay, E.E. Cummings, Frank O’Hara, Fred Rogers, garlic, Gaudi, Gertrude Stein, ginger, Gustav Klimt, Iva Pekarkova, Jane Austen, Jaromir Nohavica, Jeanette Winterson, Josef Skvorecky, Joseph Campbell, Joss Whedon, Just a Minute, Kate Bush, Kurt Vonnegut, laughing until it hurts, Laurie Anderson, Leonard Cohen, little kids singing, Lloyd Alexander, mandarin oranges, making lists, Margaret Atwood, Miss Manners, New Yorker, Paul Simon, performance, P.G. Wodehouse, poetry, Rebecca Solnit, Rob Brezsny, Robert Anton Wilson, Robert Creeley, salt, Salvador Dali, secrets, silence, Star Trek, Stephen Dunn, Talking Heads, Terry Gilliam, things that stain, This American Life, Tom Waits, T.S. Eliot, vegetable juice, veiled cultural references, vinegar, water, wine, W.H. Auden

kids these days

A bunch of kids in Squire's class have facebook accounts. They're
posting things that I, as a parent, would not want my child posting.
Even if the account is locked, one can still see all the things of
which they are "fans" and so on. So for example, I know that this 12
year old classmate of his, real first and last name, is interested in
meeting men, long passionate kisses, and looking at men's asses in
tight pants. What to think?

a. The parents know, and they don't care.
b. The parents don't know, and don't care.
c. The parents don't know, but would care.
d. other.

An
American friend of mine suggested bringing this up at the school; that
the school should have some kind of program to address it. To my
knowledge, nothing along the lines of internet-savvy behavior is part
of the curriculum. I don't know if kids are taught about it at all.
Certainly Czech television doesn't have James Lipton telling them to give it a ponder.
Is this a situation where one sticks one's head in, or not? I worry
about these kids just putting more of themselves out there than they
would if they were thinking straight; I worry about somebody getting
hurt. Some pretty shitty things happened to me when I was a teenager that would not have happened if I had been prepared for them; there's stuff I would
have avoided if I'd known how to. It is also true that I was warned
very sternly not to do things that I went ahead and did. So maybe this
risking of yourself is part of growing up?

What would you do?

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5 responses to “kids these days”

  1. Julia@kolo Avatar
    Julia@kolo

    I think the school could talk about it. Facebook is huge in the Czech Republic and it has gotten so in such a short time (from 300k to 2 million people in the last 12 months) that I’m guessing schools haven’t realized the ramifications yet. But they will shortly so better to have it pointed out to them now before the kids get hurt. They talk about drugs to first graders. Why not facebook to 5th?

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  2. tuckova Avatar
    tuckova

    Julia- Did you see this:
    http://aktualne.centrum.cz/czechnews/clanek.phtml?id=658326
    It’s clearly not just kids who are unaware of using caution in what information they’re putting out. How much information does this sicko have from the people that joined, I wonder. And what are they going to use it for? Thanks for thinking I should take it to the school – that will be fun, huh?

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  3. babelbabe Avatar
    babelbabe

    I wouldn’t put the sole burden on the school. I would call or email the kids’ parents. Seriously. Random Internet predators preying on, for example, kids playing on Poptropica are not as prevalent as news media would have us think BUT kids posting stuff like that on sites like FB and mySpace are exactly the sorts of target the predators zoom in on.
    My kids are too young for FB but when they are old enough and want an acct, they will be required to friend me so I can check up on them.

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  4. tuckova Avatar
    tuckova

    Babelbabe – I think the burden should be on the parents, not the school, but if the parents are ignorant, then the school could at least alert them to their ignorance? I’m pretty internet-savvy, but I do get that it’s not necessarily the norm. Thanks for weighing in, though. I can talk to some of the parents personally, anyway.

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  5. mig Avatar
    mig

    The burden s/b on the parents. It would be smart, though, for someone to point out potential problems to them. The school is a good candidate. No way would I talk to parents myself, unless they were friends.

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