Education needs to be more practical. I think this is a great example.
Also, unrelated but in the same vein as practicality, education needs to be more career driven. Universities and colleges need to offer professional sports degrees for athletes hellbent on playing professionally. It’s curriculum mostly about money management, business and social media use and awareness, rather than shoving some random degree path at them. It’s the same as a student taking a psychology degree, there’s a chance they can’t use it, but that’s their choice. I imagine most athletes would not take that path, but it needs to be an option.
What happened to the good ole days of "borrowing" some shopping carts from Pathmark and lashing them into trees, with some strategic portions of the cart cut away (temporarily of course, as they are borrowed) with your fathers acetylene torch to make a shopping cart tree fort?
I don't know that 'tool' captures all of it. I think it almost does, but it feels like it's also the thing itself. Like the building or something.
If you are out there in high school making friends and expanding your circle or figuring out the pecking order thing, trying to impress a certain guy or girl, interacting with someone who just doesn't like you...at some point the 'everyone else' aspect of social media is out of your control no matter how safe you are with the 'tool'.
What I don't like is that it's just way too easy to say whatever or post whatever behind a screen. It can be artfully drafted, meticulously shot, and crafted for maximum impact. It misrepresents non-virtual life. It is not quotidian; by definition, it must be the opposite. It can create tension between how our life actually is and how we think it should be. And people say things behind screens that they wouldn't say in person--the more outrageous and offensive, the better.
Idk man. It is a tool if you stay in control of it. But can a teenager engaging with his or her peers truly do that? What about when they discover they want to mix it up with a group that are heavy users?
Plus like Wave said, it's permanent. We need to get our kids paranoid about deep state and NSA surveillance early!
Originally Posted by Sting
That's true, but the same could be said of opinion pieces in newspapers in ages past. The access to the delivery system is just much more... quotidian (sorry, could NOT resist).
It's a tool, used for communication. I get your concerns about the abstract and oftentimes anonymous nature of that communication, as I share them. But teaching safety in this instance may not just be about those writing content, but those consuming it.
It's powerful. The like of which we haven't seen before. But we will adapt. Social media has already gone through several revisions, and fads are starting emerge within it. It's fluid, so the "control" for it needs to not be at a technological level, necessarily, but at a mentality level. If the user isn't ready for that tool, maybe it is a good idea to limit access to it, just like you wouldn't necessarily hand a 13 year old a chainsaw. That's a rough analogy given the complexities of social media, but I think you get what I'm saying.
Ultimately some kids are responsible enough and some aren't. The maturity level and equivalent safety lessons the child has learned shape what the right answer is there, I think.
Last edited by wayninja; 01-31-2019 at 01:39 PM.
Fully agree that parents need to teach their kids the dangers of it and restrict access until the kids are ready. Which is probably difficult for today's age of parents since this isn't something they grew up with themselves. I would imagine this issue will more naturally correct itself when people who grew up in the social media era themselves become parents and can more knowledgeably guide their kids though those issues.
Last edited by Hawgdriver; 01-31-2019 at 01:52 PM. Reason: not a response to ninja
Originally Posted by Sting
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