MySpace Body Count Rises – Unnecessary Tragedy
The number of lives tragically brought to an end with the word “MySpace” attached to their story has increased. This story from Arizona (Police: Teen Killed Dad For Banning MySpace) is the manifestation of a premise I have eluded to, but never thinking it could ever go this far: the current teenage generation’s mental and physical dependency on social networking. It has now come to a point where a 15-year-old killed his father for taking away his Internet, and more specifically MySpace, access. The boy claims MySpace was his only outlet to communicate with friends in Florida.
Before I launch into my rant… um, how about telephone (chose: old fashioned, cell or Internet), email, IM chats, letter and even telegrams, bro?
[Rant follows; proceed with caution]
Why was this 15-year old not aware of these other means of communication? What does it say about this generation? How dependent will you, parents, let your kids get on something that is a luxury?
The Internet is not oxygen. It is not water, not food. It is not shelter. It is a 
convenience that we lived without, quite successfully, for hundreds of years (I would say thousands, but I debate the successfulness of the Middle Ages). I, personally, survived my entire first two decades of life without it… that includes the terrible decade known as the ’80s. Yet, the generation currently in their second decade is so dependent on this very-new-in-the-grand-scheme-of-time invention that they are willing to kill someone who tries to interrupt their access. Sound familiar? The drug used to be heroin or crack cocaine. Now, it’s MySpace.
The trickle down is thus: we are raising idiots… an entire generation of folks that can’t think for themselves and only know of books as those things they make you put a brown 
bag on at school… a generation that is so involved with the world around them and not themselves that they are losing the ability to behave like a proper human beings… a generation that thinks that posting random comments on someone’s profile page and sending abbreviated non-sensical texts to a friend constitutes as proper social interaction… a generation that has the lowest and slowest development of social and world-knowledge skills to date (which is ironic considering the power of the Internet)… you get the point. It’s an unhealthy level of dependency on something that is turning our kids, the generation that will one day run the world, into morons and lifeless automatons.
Sorry for the rant, but when someone, anyone, be it one person or a whole generation, is that dependent on something that has zero value in skill development or even simple worthwhile use of time – maybe we should re-evaluate its place in society.
Forget the Internet predators; be afraid of your child’s addiction and the fact that their brain may not be developing properly… on many various levels.
March 6th, 2008 at 9:09 PM
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March 7th, 2008 at 10:10 AM
I certainly agree. When I was a kid, we didn’t have an answering machine (*I* was the answering machine), the Internet, cell phones (unless you count the extremely large mobile phones that came in a suitcase), or IMg. We called each other, wrote letters on paper or sent postcards, and passed notes in class. I see the physical dependency that technology has on kids. When I first began to use the Internet and had it piped into my house, about 10 years ago, I remember being “addicted” to it. But, it was new and I was curious. I’ve since remedied that. I don’t NEED to go online (but, I have to admit that I can check my emails from my phone). One of my kids has to be pried off of the computer. I have parental controls on the computer and he does the sign-in thing without an argument (and I get reports of which websites he’s frequented, for how long, etc). And, I have the option of blocking certain websites (which I have). And, when a questionable link pops up on the report, I question him. Here’s another thing… my son is shy. He doesn’t like to call people. I am trying to encourage him to call friends, but instead he emails or texts them. As a result, his social skills are lacking… and he is incapable of holding a conversation without looking bored. I do not feel that I have to visually stimulate my son in order to talk to him. So, I ban him from the computer for periods of time (excluding school assignments) if I feel he’s getting too drawn into it. He’s always been quiet, even wanting me to respond to people for him as a little kid. I never did. I think he has to learn to interact with people. Hmmm… that gives me an idea. I think tonight, I’m going to have the boys hand-write a letter to their grandparents, to be mailed tomorrow. Yeah… that’s what I’m going to do! Hey, have a nice day…
It’s TGIF!
March 10th, 2008 at 7:02 PM
Really tragic indeed. Shows how much the modern generation is dependent on a virtual world . Online social networking sites have create a legion of children whose highest level of practicality is probably writing down a witty message or two.