Violent and Viral Videos on the Web

Hi Folks,

I was on the Today show this morning for a short segment that was prompted by the accidental deaths of a 6 and a 9 year-old boy both of whom were imitating what they saw on the Saddam Hussein hanging on the web. The lengthy discussion I had with the producer the day before covered a lot of territory, but I knew that the segment would only be 5 minutes. The segment began with a news report that covered the hangings and the Jackass type viral videos that kids are imitating with sometimes tragic results. The segment did little more than raise a million question, a few of which I would like to pose here.

To my mind, kids who are doing what we are witnessing are in most cases just being kids. Kids do dumb things. I remember jumping off the roof with a sheet as a parachute, I was about 14, not 6 and I had done some pre-testing. I first made sure I could survive the jump without the parachute. OK, now that we have established the stupidity of youth, what impact is the web having on brining that stupidity to the forefront? Certainly, there was no web when I made my jump, but I got the idea from somewhere. If the web was there, would I have jumped from greater heights or would I have researched parachutes first and found the futility of my efforts before I put myself in danger. One could argue either way.

So what is the effect of viral and violent videos the proliferate on the web? Is it the availability that is the problem, is it something else, or a combination of factors? I feel it is definitely a combination of factors, but will hold off on elaborating except for one line of thought.

We all know about the technology gap that exists between adults and children, but we are not really that aware of the increased isolation between adults and children or the causes. That isolation began with the creation of public education. Prior to that, children were integrated into adult society at an early age. By the time they hit puberty, they were interacting regularly with adults who served as their role models and mentors. As soon as school came along, children were segregated from the adult world and peer influence was a much greater contributor to their behavior. It almost immediately gave rise to "coolness". As money found its way in the hands of the youth, Madison Ave. jumped on the cool factor and further defined the lines between youth and adult and in fact contributed to a "class structure" within the youth society.

As technology progressed TV became the next big isolating factor. We tend to think about families huddled around the TV in the 50's & 60's, but by the 70's TVs began appearing in kids' rooms and today 77% of them have TVs in their bedrooms. Add to that the isolation created by the technology gap, and compound it with computers moving into kids' rooms and we have problems. Oh let's not forget the increase in single parent homes and latch key kids.

So two immediate questions come to mind.

1) What if anything, can be done to reconnect kids with adults?
2) Considering that this isolation started with schools, what should the role of schools be?

I've sent this post to members of the WWWEdu mailing list (about 1800 educators around the world) and will write about their responses after they come in.

Art