"Growing Up Online"- Hannah G.

The video “Growing Up Online” really put a lot of things in perspective for me and hopefully for other viewers. This video was created by Rachel Dretzin and John Maggio to let people how the Internet has a ‘lack of privacy’ so it seems. When people ask others what their impression of the Internet was, some, not all, might say that it’s a huge source for information and it’s how we communicate other than texting. I would have to describe the Internet as a public place to get information. Someone in the video mentioned, “If it’s on the net, it’s for everyone. There is no safeguard.” Meaning that if anyone posts anything on the Internet, anyone can trace it and look at what you have posted. That’s where this ‘safeguard’ comes in, there is none. The Internet in my opinion surely has grown to a point where everyone needs it to communicate and live. If the Internet were taken away, we would lose our source of information. Another person in the video stated that “It’s not a passing fad, no one is really in charge.” To me, this kind of tells me that the Internet is a base for us users of the Internet, and it’s not going away. A lot of our lives revolve around using the computer, whether it is for communicating, keeping in touch with far away friends, looking up simple things, or just searching random things on sources of the Internet. In the video, there were a lot of stories shown, one that really caught my attention was a story about teachers. Some schools have those electronic boards and kids of course have computers to look up information rather than looking up the information in books. I remember someone saying that if all that stuff was taken away, the kids would be bored, and the “Teachers almost have to be entertaining.” It’s hard nowadays for a lot of students to just sit there and watch the teacher teach. Us kids are so used to going on computers and finding our information, and if that was taken away from us, we might feel at unease. There were other stories in this video from having a different life on the Internet, bullying, sharing videos, and so on. This video just proves to viewers that we must be careful with what we share to the world because others can see.

If I were doing a story on how the Internet has made an impact on my life, I would write about how I use Facebook to keep in touch with friends from other states. I move a lot, and the only way I can keep in touch daily and weekly is using Facebook. I only got a Facebook so I could keep in touch with all of my friends. I know the dangers of using such cites on the Internet, so I don’t put my phone number or e-mail so everyone can see whoever is ‘snooping’. But I love to use it because it’s easy to use and easy to keep in touch and look at pictures and just say hello and have a conversation. My parents like the idea of using Facebook as a social experience, but always make sure I’m using it in safe cases. My family and I always see on the news about how hackers can get into Myspace acounts, and that’s happened to me before so I deleted it and switched to Facebook. Not saying Facebook is any safer or more dangerous, but it seems to me that a lot of people have switched. I would have to say I am like any typical person who uses Facebook and goes on everyday just to check and talk. It’s just a good communication base for me to keep in touch.