Growing up online

A couple of things struck me about the video growing up online. For one thing it is completley apparent that children are now completely engulfed in technology from the moment they wake up in the morning. This is a scary thing for most adults because it is new to them. It is natural for us to resist it, and to fear the worst. Throughout history with every new advancemet and invention there was fear that it was going to disrupt society or cause harm to our youth. I prefer to look at the positive side of kids growing up with technology. One of the things that i disagree with in the video is that parents are worried that their children are having completley private lives online. I completely disagree. I don't see how their lives could be any more public. They post pictures, videos,tweets and comments about everything they do. Essentially teenagers have always been secretive about what they do, they have always lived private lives. Parents always have difficulty finding out what they are up too. The difference was that before kids were out with their friends doing things privatley away from the adults in their lives and now they are sitting at home under parental supervision living a "private life" on the computer. I think that technology can actually be used as a tool for parents and kids to communicate better. For instance kids can text parents where they are going and privatly communicate with them via text while with their friends. This eliminates the emabarrasing phone call home to check in and allows kids to check in more often and look way cooler doing it. Parents can follow their kids on twitter and face book and learn more about their lives and their friends than their kids will ever discuss around the dinner table. If parents are willing to stop rejecting the new technology and instead embrace it and learn how to use it as a tool they may realize what a valuable tool they have for improving relationships with their children and finding out what is going on in their life.