I was wondering: How will children able to access the internet from a very young age turn out?
http://www.mrlizard.com/fragments.html
is one of the articles that got me wondering about this.
Does anyone care to make predictions?
My friend’s brother started using the internet and playing video games against us online (strategy games like Warcraft 2, or 3D shooters like Duke Nukem) when he was 7. By 9 he’d even occasionally beat us. He’s ~14 now, gets good grades, plays multiple sports, and spends a lot of time outdoors away from the computer. But if he had to write a book report he’d have access to a lot more resources than I ever did online.
I know this isn’t long-term like you were asking, but I believe that benefits and damages can obviously occur from the internet. My prediction is that a child taught to use a computer and the internet will have a valuable tool at their disposal, but if that child is allowed to spend 8 hours a day online unregulated by his parents, I can see how many problems arising (lack of social skills, less time spent with family and friends, computer-addiction, less time spent outdoors).
Then again I played 8 hours of Nintendo a day as a kid and I turned out pretty normal…I think.
Just two examples, although I imagine that they are wishful thinking.
I expect bigotry to drop drastically, as children meet people of every age, gender, sexual preference, religious preferecnce, and nationality online, and work out that unless someone draws attention to it, you can’t tell the difference between them.
I also expect the concept of censorship to crash and burn. The locals banned “Huckleberry Finn”? Grab a copy online. The principal doesn’t want to let you give the speech of your choice at graduation? Post it to the school message board, under a pseudonym, of course.
Sorry, Robert, gotta disagree with ya on both counts. Bigotry and censorship both begin at home. Bigotry is a kind of fear learned from parents, and censorship is the expression of adults’ fear and need for control.
I don’t see the Internet doing much by way of removing “fear” from the human equation.
possibly, but the internet will provide an alternative view (just like TV started to do 50 or so years ago…)
The internet actually gives me an outlet to interact. I normally don’t have one because my interests are not that common.
in college, or in ‘real’ life i’d be hard pressed to find people ic ould relate to, or who i felt like i could have meaningful discussions with. On the internet, that is easy to do.
It is addictive though. I think there might be a backlash in a few years as people see how engrossing it can become.
Concerning the internet and bigotry, I think it will be a mixed bag. It is true that, as robertliguori says, people will be less likely to be biased against a certain group if they’ve communicated with members of that group in an informal setting. However, people can select which sites on the internet they visit, and some number of children may be lured by hate groups and such, which, unfortunately can communicate cheaply to a larger audience on the internet than they can in any other media.
One of the downsides, I think, is that younger people who have grown up with the TV remote or computer mouse constantly in hand have shorter and shorter attention spans.
Children with utterly unintelligible handwriting, but who can type from age 9.
“This is a hold up, I have a gub.”
Ever played a MMORPG? Ever noticed the level 127 characters, and wonder who had enough free time to dedicate hour after hour to leveling?
Hmm.
[Goes off to play Diablo II]
Due to the advent of internet pornography, things like the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue and the Vicotria’s Secret catalog will seem about as arousing as lukewarm pudding (I speak from experience). Also, teens will no longer have to worry about hiding a large stash of porno magazines, but *will[i/] have to scour their browser’s history regularly.
I think these are the safest assumptions we can make.
In many cases, using a computer could INCREASE childrens attention spans.
There are many adults that have really bad handwriting (because they are impatient) or whatever, so using computers are a benefit to these people.
It appears that (as aways) it comes down to the parents causing and curing the problems.
With censorship, it is a matter of trust and sacrifice. Trust your children, but once they break your trust you may need to make a sacrifice in order to punish them.
Everyone needs to stop thinking:
“I won’t trust you until you give me a reason to.”
and start thinking:
“I trust you until you give me a reason not to.”
I think that the absolutely enormous amount of information accessible online will eventually (if it hasn’t already) take over the role that the public libraries held for many of us older folks.
Have a report due? Just look up the subject online, browse encyclopedias, back issues of periodicals, primary sources posted by college history departments, print out pictures, and turn in the whole thing on a cd. No more wading through card catalogs, requesting back issues, checking indexes, etc. While the end product may be prettier, contain more facts, and cite better sources, I’m not sure if it is better. I’m not sure if this is clear, and I’m positive that I’m biased, but it seems to me that there used to be a process one went through that is lost when you simply enter a search term into Google.
I agree that bigotry and censorship, as first mentioned by robertliguori, are adult concepts that are forced on children, but which mold their minds and future behaviours. The net offers ways around the normal regulatory means - banned from spending time with so and so, stashes that are too easily found, etc. Unless the parents are computer literate as well, or at least is in a position to monitor closely their child’s activities, any child can find any information with persistance.
As for longitudinal studies, I’m fairly sure there are some in progress with preliminary results. A quick Google search provided over 33,000 hits (obviously not all relevant) that brought forth such topics as Sexual Solicitation of Youth on the Internet from the JAMA, and Primary School Children’s Conceptions of the Internet - A Longitudinal Study Before and After Use over a 20 month period from the School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences in Brighton.
Longitudinal studies vary in length, but obviously the longer the more accurate and useful for further study, so it depends what you are looking for. Will it do them more harm than good? Pervert their minds and make them more a menace to society than an efficient, useful citizen?
I would say it depends upon the child and the social conditions he/she is exposed to whilst using the net as well. These factors play a more major role than the one factor in itself. However, the net does offer information that has been long written out of modern, updated, textbooks, accessibility to resources that many schools lack due to poor funding, and ideas and opinions to broaden their minds. Not only will they be able to explain the latest RPG and chat about their friends from around the world, but perhaps quote some long forgotten/obscure philosopher offhandedly…
Quick clarification: it was my intent to attribute the original mention of bigotry and censorship (the concepts) to robertliguori, not the rest of that sentance. Apologies for any misunderstanding.
I for one hope that the emphasis in education turns from memorizing information to evaluating and understanding information.
As for effects on children growing up with the internet, who knows? I doubt it’ll be any more disasterous than tv was.