growing up with the internet changes everything.

“Growing Up Online” is a documentary directed by Rachel Dretzin and John Maggio for PBS. This television broadcast is about how pre-teens and teens overuse the Internet and how it affects them. Although I feel the broadcast is one sided, they show various stories about teens in the state of New Jersey. The teens shared similar stories about how the spend a lot of their time on myspace talking to friends. Autumn Edows spent her time creating an alter-ego world online. She gained self-confidence by posting revealing pictures. At school they called her a “Goth” and made fun of her but online she was told she was “gorgeous”. Another girl had an eating disorder where she would gather tips and acknowledgement from others online. She never told her parents about this because she wanted to continue with this idea of stay thin. She lead an unhealthy life that where others in her situation would group up and blog about their successes of staying thin in a deadly fashion. This is a serious situation because she is being applauded for her unhealthy ways causing her to starve until she’s dead. Another serious situation is cyber bullying. John Halligan’s story about his son Ryan is a tragic story about how his son committed suicide after being bullied both in person and following him home online. Although he was able to prevent the bullying from the Internet, being young and vulnerable caused this torture to continue for him. He was tricked by his classmates and called offensive names. His heart was broken and he was overly depressed. He had a friend online who supported his idea of suicide while helped persuade this boy into going through with this horrible idea. The use of the Internet helped both Ryan and the girl with the eating disorder continue with their mistaken ways of life. Although the girl’s story did not end tragically, thoughts of suicide and eating disorders are symptoms that are occurring to many pre-teens and teenagers.
If I were to write about my experiences with the Internet and digital media it would not be as overdramatic as this film. Even though I do agree with their key points, I feel I am able to make my own decisions. I am not an influenced person and I am sensible enough to know whom I should be talking to online and whom I shouldn’t be. I have never dealt with bullying because I don’t allow such to happen. I have always been a mature person and things kids say never affected me because I know how foolish they are deep down. It saddens be that things like suicide and eating disorders happen to these children because there is so much more to life that they are missing. I would never take my own life because of the things other people thought about me. I don’t care what anyone thinks about me. We are all born to be unique and I am not here on this earth to please anybody. The Internet has not influenced me negatively. The only thing the Internet has blessed me with is the benefit of keeping in touch with my friends across the world and having excellent resources for my schoolwork. I feel there is nothing negative about the Internet unless you make it negative. Anyone with a head on their shoulders knows the dangers of the Internet do not exist.