(no subject)

[libertango]

So...

So tracylee went and put up a link to an article in the Washington Post about web diaries by teenagers. Here's the link.

Now, I first read a few entries of Nay's because I was hanging out in alt.binaries.webcams.pictures, where captures of her tend to show up. And I scouted out her website. As the article says, it's very teenager-ish.

But something about the Post article just kept giving me the creepy-crawlies.

I figured out what it is: the sheer, unmitigated fear.

Fear that teenagers are, you know, writing. And reading. And talking to each other. And finding out, in that loneliest of ages, that they're really not alone.

Fear of strangers. Fear of stalkers. Fear of opening up anything whatsoever about oneself.

I mean... last I checked, the US alone has about 135 million Net users, of various stages of involvement, according to Internetweek a week or two back. And the number of cases involving any sort of stalking or whatnot that's risen to criminal charges is... what, a dozen? Two dozen? Meanwhile, crime stats are at historic lows.

I just find it archetypal of our time that we're trying to put so much fear into these kids about their fellow human beings, and about each other. About anyone not of the same narrow age range. About thinking.

It's almost the psychic equivalent of suburbia, where instead of physically isolating the kids one house at a time, and telling them never to play with any neighbors spontaneously, and never to trust anyone, not relatives, not teachers, not clergy, not daycare, no one -- we're instead trying to segregate these kids out into little thought barrios, where they don't talk to anyone except those on the approved security list.

It's probably a futile attempt, of course. People being people, let alone kids being kids, just about the first thing they want to do when shown the Net is talk to someone else.

But I find it very disturbing that our society has these attitudes in the first place.

Comments

[tsenft.livejournal.com]

I have book chapter draft I'd like you to look over if you get time.

In there, and as a way of dealing with "privacy alarmists" on the Internet, I discuss how from their inception privacy laws have (not) worked for women hstorically in the U.S.. As you know, the Brandeis/Warren decision was about making the definition of privacy equivalent to protection of the domestic sphere from media intrusion, and not much more. And as you also know, the domestic sphere is um, a complex place for women's rights historically.

Of course, I cannot argue for the eradication of privacy laws in this country, in part because I have no desire to throw abortion protections for women out with the legal bathwater. As long as the 9th and 14th Amendments have the "privacy penumbra" attached to them (and to my knowledge, this penumbra is the legal basis for the protection afforded women for abortion in the name of privacy) I think the situation is freaking complicated. In fact, part of the argument of my book is that women homecammers on the Web perform in a sort of campy way a general ambivalence many women have regarding those who would "protect our privacy for us, for our own good", as Warren originally did in that first 1890 decision.

But like you, I get frustrated with the discussion about privacy on the Net that seems to pervade popular media outlets. On the one hand, there are freaky conservatives who invoke The Lord to explain why I'm jeopardizing my safety by being public online. On the other hand are many people who have never spent any significant time online, but buy the classical liberal belief that "we" have all experienced the same privacy protections under the legal system in this country, and therefore as rational folks, "we" should be concerned about the erosion of said protections.

Ugh . End rant, and good work!

that attempts review legal protections for privacy in the U.S. against changes in the domestic sphere since Victorian times.

[hal-obrien.livejournal.com]

Terri, anything you're kind enough to let me see, I am more than willing to read. My e-mail is in my profile, but just to satisfy the Dept. of Redundancy Dept. is argyll@speakeasy.net

I know what you mean about the gender differences here. I've been online since 1982, and while great progress has been made, I know I'm not really in any position to say how safe or unsafe a woman should really feel online.

That said, though, I think the Post writer was playing up on that -- "Look at these innocent teenage girls, just begging to be abused by a cruel male world!" Stated much more politely, of course, but that certainly seemed the premise to me.

[tsenft.livejournal.com]

haha that last sentence wasn't supposed to be there. sorry

Fear and communication

[forcemajeure.livejournal.com]

Fear of strangers is so central to our way of life. I think it's why we (I'm 17) are on the net. In a society where anyone could just walk up to anyone else, why would we need pseudonyms, or words decoupled from physical space?

K