"Growing Up Online"

The video we watched in class, "Growing up online" was very troublesome for me for one specific reason. This video simply portrayed technology and the internet in particular as being nothing but a negative thing that kids have in their life. It brought up cases in which students were being bullied on the internet once they got home which eventually led the the kid unfortunately committing suicide. While that was an awful story about what happened to the student from being bullied, the video portrayed that the internet was to blame for this happening. It failed to place an emphasis on the fact that the boy was being bullied at school as well which is actually where it started. The internet just didnt make it any better. The video portrayed this story in a way that causes people to negatively associate the internet with suicidal activities. This could cause some viewers to say, "Wow. Look what the internet is doing to people's lives."
What the video did not do was the problem I had with it. It failed to recognize the importance that technology and the internet have in students lives. The internet has provided students with a way for them to communicate with each other and do many other things that would be impossible without it. As it did say, the majority of students know how to use the internet safely and only talk to people who they know well. A possibly better way to present this video, I believe would have been to present some positive attributes of the internet for students in schools while recognizing that it can be dangerous if used too much or in the wrong way.