Internet Socializing Will Not Lead To Amber Alerts, Abduction

Speaking of new media.....

Teenager's Internet Socializing Not A Bad Thing - NyTimes.com


"“It may look as though kids are wasting a lot of time hanging out with new media, whether it’s on MySpace or sending instant messages,” said Mizuko Ito, lead researcher on the study, “Living and Learning With New Media.” “But their participation is giving them the technological skills and literacy they need to succeed in the contemporary world. They’re learning how to get along with others, how to manage a public identity, how to create a home page.”

I realized I hadn't commented on this new study. Which is ironical in the extreme, since I am ever so fond on harping on how (horrors) the internet will NOT harm or warp children and cause them to drive away into the sunset with ex-cons named Susan. Really. It will not.

I'd like to comment first on the notion that kids are "wasting" their time by hanging out on the internet. Parents, I would like you to think back ere' the inky black decades and remember when you were teenagers: you know, poodle skirts, sock hops, girls named Rizzo, so forth. Did you spend many hours talking on the phone and listening to the Beatles? Did your grizzled, lantern jawed WWII veteran father bang on your door and scream "STOP TALKING ON THE PHONE AND LISTENING TO THEM SHAGGY HAIRED FAGS", perchance? Did you flip him off behind the closed door and concoct more elaborate schemes to talk on the phone and listen to Dirty Trash Music regardless of his opinions? Did you turn out okay anyway?

I presume you see the analogy here. You, parents, are making the same assumption your parents did: that anything new is by definition 1. stupid, 2. contentless, and 3. possibly extremely dangerous. This is not a battle you are going to win.

I turned 20 fairly recently and I can state with total confidence that the internet and text messaging are how we communicate. We as a generation do not actually call each other much on the phone - but we sure as hell will text and IM each other until our little quivering thumbs fall off. This stems from the same impulse you, parents, had back in the day: we want to talk to our friends and connect with our peer group. The vast majority of us have very limited interest in talking to ex-cons named Susan.

I am also a geek and grew up a geek. Internet socializing is of even more vital importance to the awkward-inclined, and I will explain why:

First: internet friendships can be a good thing. For lonely or awkward teenagers, they can be an absolute lifesaver. Back in the halcyon, sepia-tinted days of your youth (what was with those shorts? really?,) awkward loners had no social options other then being slammed up against lockers and building ham radios. They were tragic, terrible days to be a smartie pants or a geek, a veritable dark ages for awkward kid-dom. To geeks, the day the internet was created is remembered as a day when the heavens opened and angels brilliant voices trilled out across the entire universe: We No Longer Had To Be Alone.

And what a wonderful thing this connection is. A geek can now find people across the world who share his or her interests, people who understand what they are going through. They can provide a network of caring and support that the embryonic geekling cannot find at school or even within his or her family. I've seen this support network save and vastly enhance lives that were rather small and poor prior: I'm one of them. Internet friendships can turn into rewarding real-life friendships - and no, even face to face meetings very rarely end in horrible murder and Amber Alerts and Kidnapped Blonde Virgin Warnings. Really. Pinkie swear.

Parents, my point is this: the internet is not evil, it is not useless, and it is not a "waste of time." The internet is how my generation interfaces with and encounters the world, and can be an agent of great social change - look at the organization behind the recent Presidential election or the vast network of real-time bloggers. Kids who are adept at using the internet and comfortable with the online world go into the workforce with a considerable advantage: they will be able to use the milleniums most dynamic tool with aplomb and grace. Don't trap your kids in dinosaur-like thinking - step through the door of the future with confidence that your kids may actually be doing the right thing. You raised them, didn't you?

(P.S: Installing that Net Nanny software is pointless. Any kid with an IQ above slime mold can disable it in the amount of time it takes you to clip your toenails. Just FYI.)

mumbai blogging and tweeting redux

“I don’t care if this post does not make sense” – India’s Blogosphere Comes of Age – Financial Times

“The ensuing sense of anger was also captured. A blogger writes, “We cannot tolerate these fanatics arriving in a boat on the Mumbai coast armed with explosives and guns. We cannot tolerate the fact that they got into high security stations and so called well protected hotels with guns and bombs and held people hostages. We cannot tolerate the fact that they killed people to just prove that they were capable of doing so. I refuse to be resilient. I refuse to be tolerant. I want answers and I want them now. I want to know why the intelligence did not spot this. I want to know why the coast guard did not spot this. How can we let these uncivilised people hold the city at siege? I don’t care if this post does not make sense”.”

I am interested to see how India handles this massive, symbolic insult. It's a rickety metaphor but perhaps an apt one: 9/11 provoked the same passionate, vengeful emotions in Americans. I have absolutely no idea how India will handle their own watershed situation. I sense it's gonna be handled with more decisive actions then shown in India's past. These situations do make you understand WHY some people are perfectly okay with slapping around terrorists for information. Does that make it okay? No, but....


Twitter Turns Serious Amid India Terror – Financial Times

“Users have requested news when local coverage has been blacked out, and posted breaking updates from Indian channels ahead of Western networks. One man based in Australia used Twitter to request information on his missing family: “Hearing that more and more floors at Oberoi have been cleared but still no word on my cousin (Italian national woman with infant).” Six hours later, and after several desperate –messages, he wrote: “Just saw them coming out of the hotel. Live pictures of them safe and well. Overwhelmed.”

But as the attacks have gone on, the stream of messages has become more and more cluttered with conspiracy stories, arguments, spam messages and confusing posts, thrown in with tweets from media outlets and observers.”

Again, the wheat-from-chaff issue is brought up, although I believe the upcoming generation is savvy enough to figure out what is total bullshit and what is accurate. It's not like the major media outlets are startlingly accurate themselves.

One question: which route guarantees the most accuracy? The oversight of a trained editor or combining many sources of data to arrive at a general truth? I can't decide.

Twittering and Blogging About Terror – Times of India

"Blogger Harish Iyer, who started ‘Terror in Bombay’ soon after the attacks, has been posting everything from consulate numbers to lists of hostages. ‘‘Anything to do my bit,’’ says the 29-year-old, who is also fielding calls and emails from people desperate to find their loved ones.

Blogger Amit Varma, whose blog is called India Uncut, was in a thoughtful mood. “Earlier today, I was working on my novel. Now I wonder what’s the point. The book will come out in April, and Bombay will be a different city then. This book was written in a Bombay before these attacks; it will come out in a Bombay after these attacks, and it somehow feels, as I sit here in the business center of a boutique hotel a stone’s throw from the mayhem, that it will be inadequate. It is a love story and isn’t that perverse?”

We can only hope Mumbai will come out of this with its crazy-ass spirit intact. Slumdog Millionaire is earning a lot of attention and praise right now: hopefully the movie will draw international attention to how wonderful Mumbai is. Mumbai is aching for good publicity right now. I haven't seen it yet but I damn well will soon.


Twitter’s Moment – Forbes


"The question now is how to manage--if it is manageable at all--the information that comes to the forefront when anyone with a cellphone or a cheap laptop can blast information around the globe with a few keystrokes.

There are some reports that Indian authorities asked those in Mumbai to stop Twittering about the event in order to keep the activities of police quiet.

If true, that's a breakthrough. It's the sort of challenge journalists covering combat have long grappled with: What information should you share? Who decides what you can write? To what end?"

Good questions. We as the tech savvy are going to have to answer them to an at least acceptable degree before the older generation sees citizen journalism as "worthy." It also leads to uncomfortable questions about control: do we need control over citizen journalism? If so, who gets to inflict it? Do we really trust people to self regulate?

As an aside, general consensus seems to be that the terrorists were NOT using Twitter to monitor police or military activities. But we don't know anything for sure yet, do we?

That's all for now. I think I'll start posting some of my backlogged reviews of Mumbai restaurants in the next few days. I want to be reminded of the wonderful things about the city.