'Frontline' examines the YouTube generation
All right, parents. Tell the kids they have to go get online or IM friends and leave you alone at 9 p.m. today. Because you've got some top-secret TV watching to do.
The PBS investigative series "Frontline" has an episode that is must-see TV for all parents. "Growing up Online" debuts at 9 tonight on WTTW Channel 11, and I guarantee it will startle with what it finds kids are doing online and just how vast the divide is between how kids and adults use the Internet.
"It's been said that the Internet has created the greatest generation gap since the advent of rock 'n' roll," says the narrator. And, after viewing "Growing up Online," I believe it. I consider myself a pretty hip parent, with one child already out the door to college and another doing fine in grade school. But this hourlong documentary opened my eyes to dangers and pitfalls I hadn't even considered.
Not that "Frontline" gets all hysterical and suggests that the Internet, MySpace and Facebook are corrupting youth the same way Elvis and Little Richard did 50 years ago with their "devil music." Far from it. What makes this documentary so great is how matter-of-fact and even-handed it is.
For one thing, it says not to worry about "Internet predators." They've apparently got a lot more to fear from undercover cops (hello, Rob Goldman) than kids have to fear from them.
"All the known cases of sexual exploitation involving social networks have involved kids who have gone out looking to meet somebody," says journalist Ann Collier. "These so-called predators are people who are totally up-front about their sexual intentions. And they are meeting kids who are looking for risk, danger, challenges."
Although many kids admit to having had an encounter with some creep online, kids who know from an early age not to get in a car with "Mr. Stranger Danger" aren't going to drop their guard as teens just because they're on the Internet.
That doesn't mean there's nothing to fear. "Frontline" begins with fairly innocent Internet shortcuts, such as one kid using a Web site for its book synopses.
"I can't remember the last time I read a book," he says. "You can read the whole book in a matter of pages."
And if the Internet has made it easier for kids to score prewritten papers, it has also created programs for teachers to detect such copies and other forms of plagiarism. In that, the Internet race is a standoff.
No, it's other, less predictable ways the Internet is being put to use that surprise. For instance, it's well known the way kids try on different personae on social-networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. Yet 14-year-old Jessica Hunter came up with an entire new provocative personality, Autumn Edows, posting Betty Page-style shots of herself.
What's most surprising, however, is that it actually drew her out of a considerable shell. Her parents didn't understand at first, and had her delete everything off her computer -- even though the shots figured to be out in cyberspace forever -- but even they came around to recognizing that it served a valuable purpose for her.
A teenage anorexic named Sara, however, used the Internet to connect with others with the illness through "Ana" sites.
"When I'm online I'm the real me," she says, "because I know they won't judge me."
"What do your parents know?" says the interviewer.
"Nothing."
The Internet can also be used for bullying, and while some of that is common with any generation's experience, only with new twists -- one cyberfeud escalated to an actual food fight over school lunch, and kids instantly pulled out their picture phones and wound up posting the melee on YouTube -- other aspects are new and legitimately fearsome.
One middle-school student was bullied into connecting with another outcast, and they took to visiting suicide sites together. The first boy was found hanged -- with a noose he'd discovered instructions to online -- shortly before he was to enter eighth grade.
So while the Internet is really just a tool, there is no doubt it does accelerate and exacerbate some of the usual dangers of the teen years. That's why, now as ever, parents have to do all they can to stay in touch with their kids by any means necessary and offer the guidance in using the Internet that they would in using the television or the oven or the family car.
On that note, maybe it's best not to send the kids away tonight. Try watching "Growing up Online" together. It's sure to open new topics and lines of communication -- even if your kids are more comfortable texting than they are talking.
Remotely interesting: John Edwards visits CBS' "Late Show With David Letterman" at 10:35 p.m. today on WBBM Channel 2. … WLS Channel 7 has added the NextGenPolitics feature to its Web site at abc7chicago.com. It gathers various candidates and videos on their stands on the issues.
WTTW Channel 11 airs "Streetwise: The Movie" at 10 p.m. today. It looks behind the scenes at the Chicago newspaper that benefits the homeless. … Fox unveils the new truth-or-dare reality competition "The Moment of Truth" at 8 p.m. Wednesday on WFLD Channel 32. … The second season of "Barney Miller" is out on DVD today for $30, reasonable compared with "Swamp Thing: The Series" for $40.
End of the dial: Former radio host Rob Sherman and his daughter, Dawn, appear on "The O'Reilly Factor" at 7 p.m. today on the Fox News Channel. They'll tape this afternoon at WFLD Channel 32.
Syndicated WGCI 107.5-FM morning host Steve Harvey unveils a new look on the cover of Jet this week. With his new shaved head, let's just say he's got a face for radio.