Together While Apart: Virtual Families and Friends

Generation Y Hardly Remembers Life Without Internet

http://www.newsobserver.com/266/story/396515.html

MySpace.com, Popular Online Hangout for Teens, Has Risks

How Parents Can Find, Monitor Online Sites (Cleveland Plain Dealer, free registration required)

Web's Power to OverExpose Teens Stirs a Warning (Boston Globe)

Kids Reveal Too Much Online, Poll Suggests

The explosion in social networking online has given predators unprecedented access to children, a poll by the Polly Klaus Foundation reveals. The online poll of 1468 people, aged 8 to 18, discovered, according to this report:

■ Teens frequently communicate with someone they have never met via instant messaging, email and chat rooms.

■ Two in five said they had posted information about themselves so others could see it and contact them.

■ One in four reported talking online about sex with someone they had never met in person.

■ Nearly one in eight teens had learnt someone they were communicating with online was an adult pretending to be younger.

Parents, In Briefing About Online Risks, Get Graphic Lesson

The Mansfield, Ohio police department was holding a briefing for 200 parents about online predators in the Mansfield Senior High School auditorium when, projected on a video screen within two minutes after they entered a teen chat room, a man masturbated in front of a webcam, the News Journal reports.

"Can I tell you a secret?" Officer Brett Peachey typed into the chatroom. "I am a police officer and you are masturbating in a high school auditorium on Internet safety." The man continued, but soon turned off his Web cam. Read the whole thing.

Earlier this school year, the Billings, Montana school system held three sessions on Internet safety for teachers to become more aware of what their students may be exposed to online, The Billings Gazette reports. Seventh and eighth graders need the most education about online predators, spam, viruses, inappropriate sites and cyber bullying, according to the article:

"Cyber bullying often starts in an Internet chat room. Young people can post personal remarks, outlandish gossip and slander. In some instances, cyber bullying can include posting false profiles under someone else's name and even identity theft. In extreme cases, youngsters have created Web sites dedicated to harassing their peers."

Why Harry Potter Is So Popular: This Generation of Youth, With Their Digital Devices, Is Also Learning How to Manage Magical Powers

I've been thinking about how adolescents today practice magic with computers. I'm no computer slouch, but my older boy, Matthew, has been teaching me stuff about computers since he was 12 or 13, if not before that. He's now 21.

My boys are so naturally adept in using digital devices. In their world, it's not unusual to communicate instantly and wirelessly across time zones, to see each other via webcam, to publish their own web sites, which can be read by anyone in the world. These things remain truly awesome to me.

In "True Sorcery: Harry Potter Shows We Are A-Changing," Joel Garreau of The Washington Post argues that Harry Potter is the troubadour for today's youth in a similar way that Bob Dylan was troubadour for the Sixties generation. He writes:

"Our children have used magic wands all their lives, raising and lowering the volume on the story boxes that they watch, controlling the narratives. It's uncanny, the way they can intuit what technology wants. Didn't used to be this way. Did any fathers ask their daughters to fix the Model-T, the way we now routinely hand a balky cell phone to our offspring? The relationship between who learns and who teaches, which has been stable for millennia, has been upturned: "You looked at the previous generation to learn how to live yourself. That's no longer possible," explains the anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson. "Today you're finding 12-year-olds teaching their grandmothers how to use computers so they can exchange e-mails." Each day, our children wake up in a world that will have changed by sundown. They take incomprehensible change for granted and have absorbed the wisdom of the author Arthur C. Clarke: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." And Harry Potter addresses the outstanding question that we and our children encounter as we face such unprecedented change. It is the problem of the moral use of our powers. As Bateson says: "Who teaches what's right is an issue in politics, it's an issue in religion, it's an issue in business."

I've been thinking about how adolescents today practice magic with computers. I'm no computer slouch, but my older boy, Matthew, has been teaching me stuff about computers since he was 12 or 13, if not before that. He's now 21.

My boys are so naturally adept in using digital devices. In their world, it's not unusual to communicate instantly and wirelessly across time zones, to see each other via webcam, to publish their own web sites, which can be read by anyone in the world. These things remain truly awesome to me.

In "True Sorcery: Harry Potter Shows We Are A-Changing," Joel Garreau of The Washington Post argues that Harry Potter is the troubadour for today's youth in a similar way that Bob Dylan was troubadour for the Sixties generation. He writes:

"Our children have used magic wands all their lives, raising and lowering the volume on the story boxes that they watch, controlling the narratives. It's uncanny, the way they can intuit what technology wants. Didn't used to be this way. Did any fathers ask their daughters to fix the Model-T, the way we now routinely hand a balky cell phone to our offspring? The relationship between who learns and who teaches, which has been stable for millennia, has been upturned: "You looked at the previous generation to learn how to live yourself. That's no longer possible," explains the anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson. "Today you're finding 12-year-olds teaching their grandmothers how to use computers so they can exchange e-mails." Each day, our children wake up in a world that will have changed by sundown. They take incomprehensible change for granted and have absorbed the wisdom of the author Arthur C. Clarke: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." And Harry Potter addresses the outstanding question that we and our children encounter as we face such unprecedented change. It is the problem of the moral use of our powers. As Bateson says: "Who teaches what's right is an issue in politics, it's an issue in religion, it's an issue in business."

Kid's Views

  What are the views of kids -- members of the digital generation -- of having virtual families and friends, and of all this technology in their lives? What is its impact? Read what kids like Matthew had to say about their virtual lives, life at Dad's house and Mom's house, and staying connected with far-flung friends and loved ones.

• Watch Canadian Television show on the 21st Century Family. The final segment, at 15:57, focuses on "virtual visitation" in three families, including Jim Buie and Matthew Buie-Nervik.
• Weekends in Washington With My Dad and Step-Mom, by Matthew Buie-Nervik, Age 11 (as told to Dad)
• Premium Content: After Second Grade, When Move Occurred, Was Pivotal Year in His Life
• Premium Content: A Young Man, At 18, Looks Back On Life, As a Virtual Son
• ""Knowing I can see and talk to my Dad whenever I want...we're definitely a lot closer because of virtual visitation!" Matthew told a TV news crew when he was 16. Click to read the transcript of Newspro's special report, "Virtual Visitation" helps children of divorced families..
• HOME ALONE: One of the First Decisions This Blended Family Made Was: to Each His Own Computer, piece by Ariana Eunjung Cha in Washington Post Magazine exploring the pros and cons of heavy computer use in one blended family.

• MY LONG-DISTANCE LIFE: "At the age of 5, I discovered what all children of divorce know: you're always missing somebody." By Nich Sheff, in Newsweek.

• MIDDLE SCHOOLERS, LETTING THEIR FINGERS DO THE TALKING: This article from The Washington Post chronicles pre-teens use of online chat as a social vehicle.

Weekends in Washington With My Dad and Stepmom

By Matthew Buie-Nervik, age 11
(as told to Dad)

About every other month during the school year, I fly by airplane more than 600 miles to Washington, DC to visit my dad and step-mom. The first time I flew by myself, when I was nine-and-a-half, I was a little nervous. But the escort provided by the airline was very friendly. She made sure I had enough to eat, let me sit in the front of the plane, and played a game of cards with me.

My Dad was waiting for me when I got off the plane. We hugged and talked as we walked to the car. I told him about all the friendly people in Evansville. I told him that people from the church brought my mom and me casseroles and other food when we first came to town. They loaned us furniture before the moving van arrived. People are friendlier in Evansville than they are in Washington, DC, I think.

And things are a lot cheaper in Evansville: 35 cents for a Pepsi. In Washington, Pepsi is 50 cents. Houses and apartments are a lot cheaper in Evansville, too.

But Washington has fun things to do, too.

My step-mom Lucia is a good cook. She and Dad are not vegetarians, but my mom is. Lucia made a vegetarian dinner just for me-- noodles and butter beans and parmesan cheese. Then we played parcheesi on the living room floor. Lucia won, Dad came in second, I came in third, and Justine lost. Justine is a student from the Ivory Coast in West Africa who is staying with my family for two months. She speaks French and is learning English.

Visiting the President's House

On Saturday morning, Dad, Justine and I rode the bus to the metro to the White House. It is the home of the President of the United States. He is the head of our entire government. He's the boss for 300,000 workers. He has the most famous street address in America: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, DC.

To visit the President's house, we had to wait in line for 45 minutes. It started to rain. Dad bought an umbrella for $10. The man selling umbrellas sold so many so fast he ran out. Some unlucky people got real wet.

We heard music--drums and trumpets--and a voice telling us the history of the White House. Dad said he saw a tree that he bet once held a tree house climbed by Amy Carter. She was my age when her dad, Jimmy Carter, was President. That was in 1980, three years before I was born. Since he left the White House, Mr. Carter spends his time building houses for poor people. The program is called Habitat for Humanity. (I painted part of a house for Habitat.)

Inside the White House, the guards made us go through metal detectors, to be sure we didn't have any guns or bombs or anything to kill the President.

The White House has 132 rooms. But we only saw a few rooms. Our tour was only 20 minutes, after waiting in line 45 minutes.

We saw the the President's Library, the Green Room, the Red Room, the Blue Room, the East Room, and the State Dining Room. In the East Room, we saw a famous portrait of George Washington. During the War of 1812, the British burned down the White House. But First Lady Dolly Madison saved the painting from the fire.

On the walls were other fancy paintings of Presidents. Dad bought me flash cards of the paintings of the Presidents. I could identify almost as many as Lucia and more than Justine could. I identified:

1. George Washington (the first President), the father of our country.

2. Abraham Lincoln, the President who freed the slaves. He prevented the United States from splitting up into two countries, North and South.

3. George Bush--the President who won the war against Irak and Saddam Hussein.

4. Bill Clinton--I saw him when I was 8. He rode across the country in a bus. I also went to his inauguration. There were thousands and thousands of people there. My friend Alec and I climbed up on top of a portable toilet so we could see the President on this gigantic TV screen. You wouldn't believe the fireworks! They were GREAT.

Anyway, the guards at the White House would not let us go upstairs 'cause that's where the President lives. If I ran real fast, I might have sneaked upstairs and said hello to Mr. Clinton.

Dad bought me a workbook called A Kid's Guide to Washington.. We read from it while waiting in line. It asks this question:

"Can you find the brass plaque in the Grand Foyer bearing the four dates that major White House building took place?"

Just before we left the White House, I looked down on the floor and exclaimed to Dad, "There it is! The plaque and the 4 dates." If not for me, he wouldn't have seen it.

As we stepped outside the White House, my Dad, Justine and I took pictures. Then we got our picture taken with President Bill Clinton.

(The cardboard version, that is.)

The Air Show

Later that afternoon, we drove to an air show in College Park, MD.

"Ooooooh la la!" Justine exclaimed. "Look! Look! That helicopter is smoking. It is crashing!"

The helicopter fell behind a building and we waited to hear "BOOM!" or "CRASH!" or maybe it would blow up and catch everything on fire, including us.

But no. That's not what happened. Just before the helicopter crashed to the ground, the pilot steered it back up into the air. What we saw was a trick. It was part of the air show.

We saw a dog jump out of an airplane and parachute to the ground. We saw a lady in a skimpy bathing suit shoot a rifle at an airplane and it almost crashed. We saw an airplane drop a box full of ducks onto the runway.

I met my friends Luis and Joseph Dominguez there, and his parents Connie and John. John is a pilot and he wants to take me, my dad and Luis flying some time.

Luis came home with us and spent the night. We had a fun time eating pizza and playing with styrophone airplanes. We hid from my dad and Luis's mom. We did such a good job of hiding that they couldn't find us.

On Sunday, after Luis went home, my Dad, Justine, Lucia and I played "Ghost in the Attic", a board game, and then a fun game of softball in the park. It was a close game. I won 24-22.

All in all, it was a great weekend. Time flew so fast, it felt like 15 minutes instead of three days and two nights.

Staying Connected to Family By Blog

Now 21, Matthew Buie-Nervik is currently traveling the world as a sound engineer with the Holland America cruise line. He keeps his family and friends up-to-date on his experiences via his weblog.