cotton wool culture

A major study by Play England, part of the National Children's Bureau, found that half of all children have been stopped from climbing trees, 21 per cent have been banned from playing conkers and 17 per cent have been told they cannot take part in games of tag or chase. Some parents are going to such extreme lengths to protect their children from danger that they have even said no to hide-and-seek ...

The Play England study quotes a number of play providers who highlight the benefits to children of taking risks. 'Risk-taking increases the resilience of children,' said one. 'It helps them make judgments,' said another. Some of those interviewed blamed the 'cotton wool' culture for the fact that today's children were playing it too safe, while others pointed to a lack of equipment or too much concrete in place of grass. The research also lists examples of risky play that should be encouraged including fire-building, den-making, watersports, paintballing, boxing and climbing trees
- Kids need the adventure of 'risky' play

internet safety

The world's first road traffic death occurred in 1896; the coroner was reported to have said,

"this must never happen again"

• 1.2 million people killed (2003)
• up to 50 million people injured (2003)
• predicted 65% increase over next 20 years

5 dangerous things you should let your kids do

5 (or 6) dangerous things you should let your kids do:

1. Play with fire
2. Own a pocket knife
3. Throw a spear
4. Deconstruct appliances
5. Break the DMCA
6. Drive a car

just the facts about online youth victimisation

moral panic is well intentioned but ineffective

the cornerstone belief that youth put themselves at risk by sharing their personal information (name, school etc.) on line is wrong

other related beliefs about internet pedophiles lying about their ages, identities and motives, tricking kids into disclosing personal information and then stalking, abducting and raping those children also turn out to be vastly exaggerated

what is the reality?

• there are almost no victims under the age of 13
• there is very little violence, abduction or deception involved in online sexual predatory behaviour
• the offenders lure teens after weeks of conversation with them, they play on teens desire for romance, adventure, sexual information / understanding and they lure them to encounters that the teens know are sexual in nature, with people who are considerably older than themselves

Disclosing personal information on line does not put teens at risk. What puts teens in danger is being willing to talk about sex on line with strangers or having a pattern of multiple risky activities on the web like going to sex sites and chat rooms

So, to prevent these crimes is going to be a lot more awkward, messy and complicated than something as bland as telling teens not to publish their personal information on line

Rather than blaming the internet we are going to have to dig deeper into the real issues of relationships, parenting and social pressures that lead to teens putting themselves at risk. eg. school is boring, how do I get alcohol when I am underage (form a connection with an older person), workaholic parents, no physical places for teens to hangout and have fun, issues like that. It's a complex social issue not a simple issue with simple technological solutions.

source:
just the facts about online youth victimisation (pdf)
download the video or audio of the same thing

Update: (June 3, 2007)
Targeting the Right Online Behaviors
Michele L. Ybarra, MPH, PhD; Kimberly J. Mitchell, PhD; David Finkelhor, PhD; Janis Wolak, JD
Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2007;161:138-145.

Objective To examine whether sharing personal information and talking with strangers online or other behaviors are associated with the greatest odds for online interpersonal victimization

Conclusions Talking with people known only online ("strangers") under some conditions is related to online interpersonal victimization, but sharing personal information is not. Engaging in a pattern of different kinds of online risky behaviors is more influential in explaining victimization than many specific behaviors alone. Pediatricians should help parents assess their child's online behaviors globally in addition to focusing on specific types of behaviors


Online Victimisation of Youth: 5 Years Later (pdf)

3. Focus on adolescent desires for love, romance, and companionship.

In addressing the teens who are vulnerable to sexual solicitations, moreover, it is not sufficient to simply emphasize the dangers of assault, abduction, and rape. Internet exploiters know many teens are susceptible to romantic fantasies, illusions of love, and desires for companionship. Unfortunately exploiters also know how to take advantage of this susceptibility when they form close online relationships with youth (Wolak, et al., 2004). Prevention messages about sexual solicitation need to address this vulnerability. Such messages need to remind teens about how adults who use the Internet to meet and form sexual relationships with young teens are often committing crimes and likely to get themselves and their partners in serious trouble. Youth need to understand how some adults “groom” youth to allay anxieties and encourage sexual activity. Moreover youth need to hear about how relationships between teens and adults they meet online are doomed to failure and disappointment if not worse, and, despite what teens may be imagining, are usually more about sex than enduring love

discussing a murder

"A WEB of secret internet message boards could be crucial to solving the suspected murder of South Australian teenager Carly Ryan"
- Web hunt for teen murder clues

Should jackals like Rupert Murdoch have a field day airing their propaganda uncontested, dressed up as objective reporting? Or should a more truthful view be presented as well?

So, I decided to discuss the murder of Carly Ryan (15 yo girl who was murdered in Adelaide last week) with my Year 12 class and I have decided to write this blog about it.

Rupert Murdoch has no shame. Not only does he own the newspaper that links Carly's murder to her MySpace account but he also owns MySpace itself. So he profits from the sensationalism in the first instance and he profits from the notoriety gained in the second instance. As the newspaper man knows, there is no such thing as bad publicity.

The current state of reported truth is that there is no known connection between Carly's MySpace web profile and her murder. Of course, it is possible that there is a connection but a simpler explanation is that the police are required to follow all possible leads.

It is the choice of the Murdoch press to make a headline out of it. It sells papers and frightens parents about self directed youth autonomous activity. Money and moral panic, what a grubby combination.

Those of my Year 12 students who are in the know, because they have their own accounts, understood the point quite clearly. Although it is possible that she met the person who murdered her through MySpace there had to be a very big extra factor involved to take things to the next stage - to turn an online meeting into a face to face meeting. Those students who already understand protective behaviours understand that. As one of them said, "I feel in no danger at all from having a MySpace account"

It's a disgrace that some Schools block MySpace and then turn a complete blind eye to the fact that many of their students have signed up to it at home. If there is some danger involved here for naive students who haven't learnt how to protect themselves then this approach is not in those students best interests.

infantilisation plus psychotherapy

Reviews of "Where have all the intellectuals gone?" by Frank Furedi

I read all the reviews but haven't read the book.

Furedi is arguing that we languish in an anti intellectual cultural malaise and the main reason for this is the politics of inclusion. From the Terry Eagleton review:

Furedi, interestingly, does not see market forces or the growth of professionalism as the chief villains in this sorry story. For him, the main factor is the politics of inclusion, which in his view belittles the capacities of the very people it purports to serve. It implies in its pessimistic way that excellence and popular participation are bound to be opposites

There was no mention of the blogosphere which seems to me to be the new breeding ground for radical contrarian intellectuals.

My general feeling is that post modernism is on the decline. When people meet in forums they just talk about the issues and try to figure things out, in practice they forget the weird notion that truth doesn't really exist. Yes, there is ongoing philosophical war against the notion of truth but I don't see it as being all that successful. Whenever someone really tries to get at the truth they do attract a lot of positive attention.

Kelly Jane Torrance points out that the actual content of ideas is still rather important. Something worth remembering at a time when some people are claiming that connection is far more important than content:

One cannot even rely on the supposed guardians of culture to, well, guard it any longer. "There is a new breed of university managers, museum and gallery directors, and 'knowledge' entrepreneurs who regard the content of culture and ideas with indifference," Furedi notes. "Their concern is to use culture to achieve an objective that is quite separate from its inner content."

The risk free society idea is a real problem. Parents want their children to be safe so this taps into a real fear. The media taps into this fear consistently and successfully, eg. by promoting moral panic about pedophiles and bullying on the internet. This seems to be a consistent theme in Furedi's writings if you look at his other titles: Politics of Fear, Culture of Fear, Therapy Culture and Paranoid Parenting.

Treating everyone, including adults, like children is part of this. Dumbing down. I liked this part from Theodore Dalrymple's review:

Our current cultural policies are therefore a cross between infantilisation and psychotherapy: infantilisation to ensure that nothing is beyond the grasp of anyone, and psychotherapy to make everyone feel good about himself

Roger Scruton says that the strength of the book is that it draws connections between a number of social phenomenon: the decline of truth seeking, the retreat from risk taking, hostility towards science and the dumbing down of school curriculum. It's useful to point out the synergystic effects of this combination

Some of the reviews say that Furedi attacks the notion of making things relevant as contributing to the dumbing down process. I think the reality is that people will only tackle hard issues when they find them relevant.