Something in the air
Did you ever have one of those days where the whole world seemed to be trying to tell you something?
There was a story in the news some months ago about Megan Meier, a teenage girl in Missouri who committed suicide after her neighbor (an adult) pretended to be a teenage boy on MySpace, became friends with Megan, and then sent her hateful, taunting messages. (One of the best pieces on the story was an op-ed by Leonard Pitts.)
At the time, I thought about writing something on the issue. But the lessons were obvious: that we need to take online interactions seriously, and parents need to know what their kids are up to. And somehow using such a terrible tragedy to make that point seemed to belittle the horror of what had happened.
Today, the story was back in the news as Missouri passed a law against cyberbullying (originally available at: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TECH/07/01/cyberbullying.ap/index.html?eref=rss_tech), based, in part, on what had happened to Megan.
Moments after I saw the story on my RSS feed, I got an email from a colleague about a website: http://www.stopcyberbullying.org, with useful information, tips, and resources for parents, children, and teachers.
An hour later, I got a call from a reporter on FOX News, who wanted me to comment on an LA Times story about bullying in virtual worlds for kids (originally available at: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-kidssafe2-2008jul02,0,5590073.story?track=rss): children who are getting access to other users’ passwords and then stealing their cash in Webkins and other games.
And then I read in our local paper (originally available at: http://www.buffalonews.com/businesstoday/businessfinance/story/383195.html) that hackers had broken into Citibank’s network and stolen PIN codes from ATM transactions from October 2007 through March 2008.
It is tempting to respond to these stories with fear, and to turn away from this new medium that promises to connect us together and yet reveals such flaws.
I hope, though, that what we take from incidents like these is that the internet is a public space. Like any public space, it offers a chance to connect with other people, to learn from them, to interact with them, and to share with them. We need to embrace this new space–and we need to teach our kids to embrace it–with care and vigilance, just as we would any public place.
And surely as I have pointed out at times before, these stories show once again that just because a world is virtual doesn’t mean that we don’t experience it as being, in important ways, very, very real.
