Teenagers in the News

Teenagers in the News

"Teaching Teens about Harassment" by Stephanie Clifford

This article is about how three teenage girls in Greensburg, PA got were charged with disseminating child porn. All three of them had sent nude pictures of themselves via text to their boyfriends who were all charged with possession of child pornography. According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, about twenty percent of teens have either posted or sent nude pictures of themselves through cell phones. The Family Violence Prevention Fund has labeled the sending of nude photos as a form of digital dating violence. Because of some highly publicized cases, parents are just becoming aware of how much teens can access through all the technology available to them in this day and age.

Teens shouldn't be taking nude photos of themselves and sending them to anyone. By doing this they are putting themselves at risk. These pictures can be shown or sent to anyone and teens at this age can't be trusted to keep these photos to themselves.

I don't necessarily agree that the teens involved in this article should have been charged with porn, but I believe they are using them as guinea pigs to make an example and to try and stop this behavior from happening.

"Teenagers' Internet Socializing Not a bad Thing" by Tamar Lewin

The study in this article was done by the MacArthur Foundation and basically says that parents shouldn't be worrying so much about what their teenagers are doing online for so long because they are learning technological skills and literacy that's going to help them succeed in the world. The main reason teens go online is to socialize with their friends, not to get into trouble. Teens say the Internet and technology is an addiction and you can't live without it. Today's youth have more motivation to learn from their peers than they are to learn from adults.

This article mostly makes me think of the Marc Prensky article "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants," because technology is so much a part of teens lives and previous generations don't really understand the need and obsession with it because they didn't grow up with all these fun technologies.

Something I didn't really like was how the article stated that predators and stranger danger have been overblown. There are many incidents of teens talking online to strangers and eventually meeting up with them and they end up disappearing or being found murdered.

"What's the Buzz? Rowdy Teenagers Don't Want to Hear It" by Sarah Lyall

This article was completely absurd. Howard Stapleton from Barry, Whales came up with a plan to keep rowdy teens from hanging outside stores and causing trouble. He invented a device (called the Mosquito) that emits a high-frequency pulsing sound that can be heard by most people under the age of 20 and almost no one over the age of 30. This sound is designed to irritate young people and after a few moments it irritates them so much that they end up leaving. Howard Stapleton was quoted saying "It's very difficult to shoplift, when you have your fingers in your ears."

I don't really agree with this tactic at all. I think this device is a little inhumane. It's basically treating the teens like animals. This device is pretty much a dog whistle for humans. Reading this made me think of Thomas Hine's "The Rise and Fall of the American Teenager" because teens are being viewed as pests and being driven away by a machine called the mosquito. The teens aren't being understood by the shop owners in this article and they don't really know how to handle it so instead they drive them away.

"FastForward" by Lauren Greenfield

"Fastforward" by Lauren Greenfield



I thought that Lauren Greenfield's web page was amazing! She captured teens in today's society perfectly in all of her photos from FastForward. It's very interesting to me how you can see the difference in the social class and way of life and almost see someones personality from just a photo that only captures a moment of that persons life.



"The young and privileged in Shanghai don’t care about politics or communism but are obsessed with MTV, Fashion TV, Gucci, and L.V. (Louis Vuitton). Milanese youth don cutting edge hip-hop fashion originated by the inner city and perfected by haute couture designers. Fourteen-year old Italian girls wear thongs deliberately hiked up over their low-riding pants and rip revealing holes in their jeans. They go out to discos on school nights and dance to American hip-hop and electronica until dawn." This was one of the parts of Lauren Greenfield's statement that really stood out to me. I didn't realize how much other countries youth's are obsessed with the same things that teens in the U.S. are. My favorite photo is of the little girl phoebe lying on the couch in her tutu at the opening of Barneys in front of all the shoes. It's just a very ironic photo.

The photos that most disturb me are of ashleigh (13) weighting herself on a scale in her bathroom with her family watching her. She's thirteen she first of all doesn't need to weighing herself at that age and what really annoys me is that her family is in the backround; which leads me to believe that they are curious of her weight and are encouraging her to worry about what she weighs, it's ridiculous. The other photo that really disturbed me was of adam (also 13) at a bar mitzvah at a whisky Go Go Bar with one of the dancers all up in his face. I'm just wondering Why a bar mitzvah is being held at a whisky? really?

All the teens in these photos are very dominant and seem as if they are the ones in control and ruling the world in a way. I think Thomas Hine might have a hard time with some of these photos because in his book teens are lost and trying to fit in. To me all the teens in these photos are giving off a very authoritative vibe and seem like they know who they are. I think Tricia Rose may have more to say about how hip hop and the images and stereotypes it creates are seen in some of these photos and how much socitey and the teens in it have changed over time.

"Prep"

"Prep" by Curits Sittenfield

I really enjoyed how the author started this novel off in chapter one with Lee (the main character) in class and having to present on a topic she wasn't supposed to do, right after someone else had just presented on the same exact topic. Lee completely panics and has a meltdown and ends up running out of class after just starting to present. You can totally relate to those feelings of panic and all the thoughts running through her mind. I think the author's point is to show how a teenager's mind works and all the problems they have with fitting in, sexual orientation, and making friends. One thing that kind of stuck out to me was that this private boarding school cost $20,000 to attend, they lived in dorms, and the expectations of the students was very high; it seems more like a college to me than a high school.
"I did not scream or hug anyone. In fact, as the noise gained momentum, I felt its opposite, a draining of excitement. But not a draining of tension -my body was still stiff and alert, and the impulse I had, strangely, was to weep. Not because I was sad but because I was not happy, and yet, like my classmates, I'd experienced an emotional surge, I too felt the need for expression. This phenomenon-being gripped by an overwhelming wave of feeling that was clearly not the feeling of the people around me had also happened at a pep rally: It made me uncomfortable, because I didn't want anyone to notice that I wasn't jumping up and down or cheering, and it also thrilled me, because it made the world seem full of possibilities that could make my heart pound. I think, looking back, that this was the single best thing about Ault, the sense of possibility. We lived together so closely, but because it was a place of decorum and restraint and because on top of that we were teenagers, we hid so much. And then, in dorms and classes and on teams and at formal dinner and in adviser groups, we got shuffled and thrust together and shuffled again, and there was always the chance that you might find out one of the pieces of hidden information" (pg 42). This was a part of this novel that really stuck out to me and describes a teenager's roller coaster of emotions.

Something that was a little strange to me was almost all the names of people were very different and I've never heard of most of them. I read these two chapters of the novel on the computer, which made it seem very dragged out and almost harder to read, I should have printed it out before I read it. This novel can relate basically to anything we've learned so far because it all relates to teenagers and their life growing up and how they deal with problems differently and adapt to situations they're not accustomed to.

"Tricia Rose Interviews"

Hip Hop Wars by Tricia Rose

One of my favorite parts of this interview is when Tricia Rose refers to hip-hop as being "In the ICU," which is a great metaphor and way to make her thoughts stand out. Hip-hop today doesn't have the same meaning it used to. Every song is about drinking, drugs, weapons, murder, sex, and jail. Most of the songs are very repetitive. I agree with the author that hip-hop is "dumbed down" so it's less complicated to understand. The lyrics and the content of older songs are just so much better. I mean I listen to current hip-hop, but it's not the same. The songs are also played a lot more than they used to be on the radio. I feel like everytime I change the station, the same song is playing that I just heard.

Something I don't understand is why women MC's have to either appear as sexual or really tough. Why can't they just be themselves and have fun like the male mc's get to do? I think it's ridiculous.

"Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants" by Marc Prensky

"Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants" by Marc Prensky



This article was very interesting to me because I've never really thought about the educational system and how it should be changing. The author brings up many good points in this article. I thought it was very clever of him to come up with the terms "Digital Natives" and "Digital Immigrants" to represent past generations and today's generation. Technology really is like learning another language to people who know nothing about it. Going a little off track, this article reminds me of when my parents finally both got a cell phone and I how I taught them to text and it took them awhile to get the hang of it, but now they text me all of the time. I think the main point the author is trying to make is that the biggest problem facing education today is "Our Digital Immigrant instructors, who speak an outdated language (that of the pre-digital age), are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language."



Another thing that caught my eye in this article was how it mentioned that Digital Natives like to parallel process and multi-task and the Digital Immigrants don't believe their students can learn successfully while watching TV or listening to music because they (the Immigrants) can't. I don't really agree with either of these. I think it depends on the person and how each individual thinks and learns. I know a lot of people who can sit in front of the TV and get their homework done just as fast as if they were sitting alone in a room with no noise. I, on the other hand can't do that. If I were to sit in front of the TV or try and listen to music while I'm trying to do homework it would take me about three times as long to get it done because I always find myself either getting sucked into whatever I'm watching; or singing along with the music I'm listening to and I get to distracted.

An example the author used was the Monkey Wrench Conspiracy which was a computer game made so that the mechanical engineers could learn the new Computer-Aided design (CAD) system easier and more fun. This marketing technique proved to be very effective and now it's used by engineering students all over the world.

The Rise And Fall of the American Teenager by Thomas Hine

"The teenager is the symbol of Americans' rising aspirations, the repository of hopes, the one who will realize the American dream. And inevitably, the teenager is a disappointment, whose combination of adult capacities and juvenile irresponsibility sows personal heartbreak and social chaos."

"The teenage years have been defined as, at once, the best and freest of life and a time of near madness and despair." I absolutely loved how this was worded. I think it perfectly describes a teenager in that one short sentance.

Basically what Thomas Hine is trying to say is that being a teenager is one of the hardest times emotionally that you will face in life and it can be traumitizing. Teenagers aren't given the credit they deserve and are looked down upon by many people. Teengagers have a lot on their plate; trying to fit in: "to the universe, the world, the economy, social circle, and family." According to Anna Freud not very many people can even remember the experience of being a teenager because our concious mind suppresses it because it's such a painful and traumatic time in our lives.

media literacy

The first thing I did while googling media literacy was take a quiz called how media literate are you? (http://www.justthink.org/about/how-media-literate-r-u) It grades you on a scale of one to six (I was a four), and it labels you as an animal. I am apparently a media moth; I have interest in the world, but I am very gullible.

The mass media affects how we perceive and understand the world and people around us, from what we wear, eat and buy to how we relate to ourselves and others. In the 21st century, the ability to interpret and create media is a form of literacy as basic as reading and writing.

One article I found interesting was screen violence and how children respond to it (http://www.medialit.org/reading_room/article576.html). The authors listed six characteristics of violence in film and how likely children are to imitate these acts.

"In the privacy of our living rooms we made a devil's bargain with the advertising industry: Give us an endless flow of free programs and we'll let you spend 12 minutes of every hour promoting consumption. For a long time, it seemed to work. The ads grated on our nerves but it was a small price to pay for 'free' television." "What we didn't realize when we made our pact with the advertisers was that their agenda would eventually become the heart and soul of television. We have allowed the most powerful communications tool ever invented to become the command center of a consumer society defining our lives and culture the way family, community and spiritual values once did." (Kalle Lasn, a co-founder of the Canadian media criticism and environmentalist magazine Adbusters) (http://www.medialit.org/reading_room/rr3.php)