“It may be time to consider the possibility that young people who behave
as if privacy doesn’t exist are actually the sane people, not the insane ones.”
– Emily Nussbaum, NY Magazine
We’ve all seen the movies where Elvis Presley rocks his hips to rock n’ roll music while girls shriek with thrill and parents run straight to the decency panels in protest. While Madonna crawled around on the floor in a wedding dress, parents blocked MTV from their cable receivers. And now, according to Emily Nussbaum in the NY Magazine article “Say Everything,” the Internet is the latest and greatest shock to parents and thrill to teenagers.
The internet is the largest social network for teenagers. In fact, the latest reports show that approximately 55 percent of Americans ages 12-17 have a profile online. On these websites, such as the ever popular MySpace and FaceBook, teenagers talk about seemingly everything with little regard for the open availability of the information to, potentially, the whole world. “They have adopted the skills that celebrities learn in order not to go crazy: enjoying the attention instead of fighting it—and doing their own publicity before somebody does it for them,” Nussbaum said.
Yet as our children learn that the world truly is their stage, adult Americans grow more and more concerned as the privacies once held dear slip away. With cameras on traffic lights, legal cell phone tapping, security measures in airports, and credit reports, teenagers are adapting to the lesser privacy rights than their elders. And like the Elvis sensation, no one can know whether the future holds a positive or negative effect on the future. As Nussbaum wrote, “Surely, when telephones took off, there was a mourning period for that lost, glorious golden age of eye contact?”
We’ve all seen the movies where Elvis Presley rocks his hips to rock n’ roll music while girls shriek with thrill and parents run straight to the decency panels in protest. While Madonna crawled around on the floor in a wedding dress, parents blocked MTV from their cable receivers. And now, according to Emily Nussbaum in the NY Magazine article “Say Everything,” the Internet is the latest and greatest shock to parents and thrill to teenagers.
The internet is the largest social network for teenagers. In fact, the latest reports show that approximately 55 percent of Americans ages 12-17 have a profile online. On these websites, such as the ever popular MySpace and FaceBook, teenagers talk about seemingly everything with little regard for the open availability of the information to, potentially, the whole world. “They have adopted the skills that celebrities learn in order not to go crazy: enjoying the attention instead of fighting it—and doing their own publicity before somebody does it for them,” Nussbaum said.
Yet as our children learn that the world truly is their stage, adult Americans grow more and more concerned as the privacies once held dear slip away. With cameras on traffic lights, legal cell phone tapping, security measures in airports, and credit reports, teenagers are adapting to the lesser privacy rights than their elders. And like the Elvis sensation, no one can know whether the future holds a positive or negative effect on the future. As Nussbaum wrote, “Surely, when telephones took off, there was a mourning period for that lost, glorious golden age of eye contact?”
Nussbaum, Emily (February 12, 2007). Say Everything. NY Magazine. Retrieved April 23, 2008, from http://nymag.com/news/features/27341/.
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