TeleMedia Strategy
The Bleeding Edge of Disruption

In 1992, a strange, new creature was born.  News of the creature spread across the world as more and more people became familiar with it.  We soon became attached to it, as it helped make our lives easier.  But just a few years later, the unthinkable happened:  This creature evolved into a terrible, unstoppable monster that changed people’s lives irrevocably.  The monster is known the world over as…  The Internet.

The internet is defined as a worldwide, publicly accessible series of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using standard Internet Protocol.  But when most teenagers hear the word “internet,” that’s not the first thing that comes to mind.

What does come to mind are the changes in our lives:

The year is 1990.  A young girl–let's call her Lisa–walks home from school, grabs a snack, and rushes to the mall to hang out with her friends.  She and her friends laugh because someone tripped and spilled soda on his shirt.

Ten years later, Lisa’s younger sister–Megan–walks home from school.  She grabs a snack, and rushes to sign-on to her computer and hang out with friends. She starts to LOL because her friend had to BRB because he just HIJKLMNOP (Yeah, I don’t know that means either, but we’ll probably start seeing it on instant messages soon enough.).

So, due to the existence of the Internet, these two sisters had very different ways of spending time with their friends.  What’s wrong with that?  Of course, they have remarkably different concerns.  Megan’s sheer loss of exercise and Lisa never having to worry about online predators, for example.  (Both of these are very important issues, but we’ll be tackling them in another column.)

Every day, technology progresses.  We are constantly gaining access to these new, almost magical, forms of communication.  Whether it was AOL Instant Messenger in 1997, Friendster in 2002, or Facebook and MySpace in 2004, online chats are clearly the ‘hot spot’ for today’s teens.   Unfortunately, as more and more of us become a part of the online world, we put ourselves in danger—before we even know what’s going on.  

There are many problems with this new Internet stuff that we don’t yet know about, but we do recognize some of the pitfalls this monster can engender:

1) It can be really distracting

2) It changes our personalities

3) It makes us less connected to the rest of the world  

So the first problem with online communication is that it can be really distracting.  Sometimes when I’m talking to my friends on AIM, or going on Facebook, the house could be burning down and I wouldn’t even notice.  I mean, when I’m online, I can barely concentrate on what chores my parents are telling me to do, let alone do the homework that’s been piling up for weeks.  It’s not that I consciously decide to procrastinate on homework and go online.  What’ll happen is, I’ll turn on my computer, planning to research something for my history essay, and end up typing “Facebook.com” in my web browser.  It’s instinctive.  And once I’m at the site, I may as well check my profile.  And since I’m checking my profile, well, why not just have a look at my wall?  Then maybe check out my photo comments…Have a quick look at my messages…  By then, well, the rest is history.  

Don’t look at me like I’m crazy, ’cause I know it’s happening to you, too.  It happens to all of us.  If you can resist the temptation to go online when you have a computer right there, then I have a lot of respect for you; because it’s not easy.  Even adults can’t resist the urge.  Dr. Cullen, of  the internet filtering company, “SurfControl,” says, “Facebook is the new time-waster.”

Apparently, tens of thousands of employees are getting banned from using social networking sites at work because they’re wasting too much time.  Yeah.  Even parents get distracted.  Did you know that there are Facebook groups that are actually dedicated to slacking off?!  What’s even sadder is that I’m pretty sure I’m part of one!

The internet can actually change your personality.  When I say the word “bullying,” what’s the first thing you think of?  Probably something like a little kid being made fun of by some other kids on the bus.  I know you’ve heard the lectures at school since you were in kindergarten.  I know you’ve been told over and over again that you shouldn’t shove some kid into a trash can or, conversely, what to do if you are being shoved into a trash can.  And, chances are, each time you heard it you shrugged it off, because you never shoved anyone into a trash can, and never really wanted to.  You’ve probably never thought of yourself as a bully.  Maybe it’s the fact that when you’re safely behind your computer screen you can’t see or hear other people.  Or maybe it’s that those other people can’t see or hear you.  Whatever the reason, the research suggests that, these days, online harassment is even more common than face-to-face bullying.  Bullying can mean anything from insulting a person on their Facebook wall to posting videos on YouTube about how annoying they are.  It can be an anonymous death threat, or it can be hacking into their MySpace profile. 

It’s called “cyber-bullying,” and it’s becoming worse and worse each day.  The big problem with cyber-bullying is that kids don’t look at it as a big deal, and we don’t consider it actual bullying.  But in a lot of cases, and for a lot of kids, cyber-bullying is even worse than “actual” bullying.

Marilyn Campbell, of the University of Technology in Queensland, Australia, says that kids who
are being bullied online feel like they have no place to run or hide, and that they feel like the whole world can see what’s going on.  Experts say that when kids are online, they’re less apprehensive about being mean as they would be in person.  Think about the last time you had a not-so-nice conversation with another kid on AIM. Would you have said those things in person?  Me neither.  

Have you noticed that some of us are so attached to our computers that we’re becoming disconnected with respect to the rest of the world?  This machine is actually becoming so important that it can seem even more valuable to us than our own families.

One day last summer, I was pretty bored.  So, obviously, the first thing I do is go on YouTube and look for funny videos.  I came across one that featured a girl who looked about my age.  She was asked about which she cared more—her family or MySpace.  Her answer was MySpace.  Hysterically, she shouted that MySpace meant everything to her.  Maybe we’re not all that crazy, but you have to admit—there’s a little bit of that girl in all of us. 

First of all, kids today have A LOT of things going on:  We’ve got school all day, then after-school clubs, sports, and then tons of homework waiting for us at night.  We’re constantly complaining about having too much to do, and we stay up all night doing homework.  Yet, somehow, teenagers manage to spend an average of 11 hours per week online.  Is this really how we spend our precious spare time?  

Are MySpace, Facebook, and AIM really more important to us than our families and our friends?
I mean, sometimes, when we’re on the computer, we’re not even talking to anyone because no one else is online.  Yet we’re still able to spend hours doing things like editing MySpace profiles and finding quotes to put in our headlines.  We really shouldn’t be wasting time doing things like that. We would probably have more fun getting out of the house and riding our bikes or hanging out with friends.

So what exactly does all this mean?  That we should all go home and delete our MySpace and Facebook accounts?  Uninstall AIM from our computers?  Ha-ha.  Yeah, right.  Honestly, there’s nothing wrong with having things that allow us to so easily communicate with people and stay in touch with old friends.  The internet isn’t really evil, as long as you don’t get out of control.  You know how our parents are constantly bugging us about how we shouldn’t be wasting our time online?  And how the internet can cause us a lot of problems?  Ugh.  I just hate it when they’re right.

You can check your Facebook every once in a while without checking it every five minutes.  And maybe next time you realize you're up and online the night before a big test on a book you haven’t even started reading, you might want to shut down your computer and start reading it instead of changing your Facebook status to, “OMG I am so stressed.”  It’s okay to use MySpace and Facebook, as long you’re not using them to leave rude comments about someone else’s picture.  Or to start a group on Facebook about how that one girl is so stupid.   And, maybe, every once in a while, you could even set your status on AIM to “away,” and go watch a movie with your family.  If we can learn how to keep the internet from taking over, we can tame the monster.

By The Girl

Harita is an your typical eighth grader at a suburban Texas Middle School.  She turned 13 in August, and is just a semester away from entering high school. With a Facebook account and an AIM screename, she is always using the internet to stay in touch with her friends. When she’s not at home typing away at her keyboard, she’s texting on her new iPhone. And when she’s hanging out with friends, she always manages to take pictures to upload to Facebook.  She is often found with headphones in her ears, singing along with her current obsession: Chris Brown. She enjoys speaking in French and she plays the violin in her school orchestra. She has also been taking dancing and singing lessons for the past six years. She frequently attends Speech Tournaments where she has won many awards for her speech and debate skills. She aspires to one day become a lawyer.

Dad’s a software consultant and Mom’s in Banking.  The internet first became a part of Harita's life in the fifth grade when she created her own website for her class. The website let other students print out homework they might have lost, look at a calendar of upcoming events, and see what material would be covered on the next day’s quiz.  Neither Harita nor their friends think much about the concept of TeleMedia and they don’t care about the impending industry convergence.  They do care that everything works so that they can live their lives the only way they know how.