Nate Averna
Febuary 8, 2010
English 100
Growing Up Online Response

In short educational video,” Growing Up Online”, Frontline takes viewers into the cyber world of today’s youth. Giving insight to how some youths turn innocent internet play into painful and heartfelt addictions by finding information to help hide addictions from family members or by socializing with friends online. The story starts out with an enthusiastic school teacher who uses the internet and some new technology to teach class. “Teachers today have to be entertainers or the student will not pay attention” say school teacher Steve Maher. This is explained after the camera passes threw the classroom where students are looking for text and searching threw articles while they are all seated in from of a computer. While Mr. Maher stands at the front of the room busily touching the touch screen computer to change the text. Another teacher is seen sitting in a classroom with her students all sitting around her. She is the English teacher and has been teaching for over thirty years. She says “In the thirty years I have been teaching I have noticed that kids do not focus like they used to.” The English teacher is referring to the students in her classroom. The viewers watch as students start to yawn and fall asleep after sitting with a text book in their hand for a while.
Frontline also follows the lives of young Americans who are all in some way, addicted to the internet or the information provided by it. Jessica Hunter is one of the young girls Frontline had talking about her obsession on the internet. “I feel like a whole different person” Jessica Hunter states about her online persona. Mrs. Hunter is seen as a shy girl in school, someone who did not have any friends and was plainly socially awkward. She talks about how the internet was just a place where she could express herself without having to face the rejection in person. She made up an alias, Heather Meadows and slowly people started to notice Mrs. Hunter. She started to express herself more and more, risqué photos where put on the internet, “They where basically pornographic” he father stated. And as her friends list grew she was becoming more and more addicted to the attention the internet gave her. Finally her fame came crashing down when a school teacher called her parents and told them what there daughter had been up to on the internet. Surprisingly after a grace period and some time to reflect, her parents decided to support their daughter and her online activities. The Frontline stories offer many insights to the internet and a parent’s perspective. For me it was interesting to see how parents learned to accept and change their ideas of the internet for their children, to make things world as a family.