Our recent discussions about young people who turn to violence made me consider what sort of behaviors should be considered alarming; behaviors which parents should pay attention to and perhaps seek counseling for their child when these behaviors are displayed. It's hard to think of obvious factors other than the severe ones, like a child's tendency to hurt animals or a history of physical or sexual abuse. When it comes down to it, a lot of normal teen behaviors, taken to an extreme degree, are negative and cause for alarm, but it can be hard for many adults to note the difference between extreme behavior and normal, average behavior.
For example, a teen listening to the Norwegian black metal band Mayhem is not necessarily cause for alarm, but if that teen started to empathize with then and proclaim a desire to burn churches, then it's time to step in.
Or another example. Take a look at my favorite person ever, Miley Cyrus. She's being attacked in the media for having pictures where she slightly exposes a green bra/undershirt, and others where she is laying in a boy's lap and exposing her midriff. Many people automatically jump compare these pictures to the infamous nude/scantily clad pictures of High School Musical star Vanessa Hudgens, and fear that they may imply that she is sleeping with the boy in the pictures.
Miley is 15. 15 year olds have boyfriends and girlfriends. They are developmentally and hormonally inclined to be sexually and physically attracted to those people. It might be cause for concern if a 15 year old girl was sleeping with someone or taking nude pictures of herself. However, pulling up one's shirt to bare their midriff is quite different from stripping and posing nude in front of a camera. And as far as allegations that her sitting in the boy's lap is tantamount to her being sexually active with him, I can only say that having sex with someone and coming in flirtatious physical contact with them is far from similar. To quote Jules Winnfield from Pulp Fuction, it "ain't the same fuckin' ballpark, it ain't the same league, it ain't even the same fuckin' sport." But this sort of conclusion jumping is not uncommon amongst adults who are examining the behaviors of young people.
Adults will often overinterpret a few perfectly normal teen behaviors and from there assume that the young person is at risk. There's a fine line between normal teen behavior and scary seek-help behavior.
And that made me remember a feature by one of my favorite comic writers, Lore Sjoberg:
Is Your Child on Drugs?
All that said, I still think I'd rather have a parent be too attentive and worry over small insignificant things than have a parent be completely absent and pay no attention to possible signs that their child might be at risk for negative behavior and violence, though there is plenty of middle ground between the two extremes.
On a different note, while looking for Sjoberg's old work, I came across some of his new work, a vlog project on YouTube called Alt Text, and I thought some of them were relevant to our class discussions:
Regarding the state of online communication, social networking sites, especially Twitter.
Also, some of his previous comic writing work involved taking a bunch of items in a certain category and giving them an A, B, C, D, F rating. He's apparantly revived his Ratings in his vlog.
This one is a rating of First Level Dungeons and Dragons Spells
Showing posts with label teens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teens. Show all posts
Friday, April 25, 2008
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Jack Thompson, an attorney who has fought long and hard against violent video games, Grand Theft Auto in particular, wrote this letter addressed to the mother of the chairman of Take Two, the company that produces GTA. (for the record, he didn't send it to her, but rather to her son's attorneys). The full letter can be found here:
http://diehardgamefan.insidepulse.com/2008/04/22/jack-thompsons-open-letter-to-take-two-ceos-mother/ . Here is a small clip that interested me:
"Mrs. Zelnick, did you train up your son, Strauss, to make millions of dollars by pushing Mature-rated video games to children? Any kid can go right to little Strauss’ corporate web site and buy GTA IV with no age verification. Strauss is even marketing the new Grand Theft Auto IV on World Wrestling Entertainment tv shows seen by millions of kids."
Clearly WWE has enough 18+ viewers to draw the three potential presidential candidates to promote themselves on the show to potential voters. It's not as though GTA advertisements are airing during Hannah Montana (though, as an avid fan of both Grand Theft Auto and Hannah Montana, such an ad placement would certainly hit at least one of their consumers). To imply that the video game shouldn't be advertised anywhere that children might see it is outrageous; not even the alcohol or tobacco industries are held to that standard, and the health defects caused by either of those products are clear and generally without dispute.
Furthermore, any kid can go on the site and buy the game... if they have a credit card. Which means they'd have to have their parents buy it for them unless they have a credit card of their own, in which case parents have plenty of opportunity to monitor their children's purchases on it if they're concerned with what their kids are buying. This is a far cry from a child walking into a store alone and buying it with their saved allowance.
He goes on to mention a boy who murdered cops in Alabama and then stole a cop car and blamed Grand Theft Auto for the whole thing. That case is especially damning because it's similar to a scenario in the game where the character is in a police station and has to free an inmate, kill some cops, and drive off in a cop car outside. When the young man was arrested, he poetically explained that life is a videogame and claimed that Grand Theft Auto made him commit the crime.
I've always been of the opinion that one's actions are one's own responsibility, or in the case of minors, the responsibility of their parents. If a parent doesn't want their child to play violent video games, it's up to the parent to enforce this. This doesn't have to mean monitoring the things their child buys; I think it's up to a parent to educate the child on their family's views and ethics and rules about such things. It's also up to a parent to raise a child to be respectful of their parents' rules (and, for that matter, to teach a child that murder is wrong).
If a child is in the small margin of young people whose use of this media might give them the idea to recreate events they see in the game, beyond even limiting their child's involvement with a game, it's the parent's responsibility to notice red flags (that their child is displaying antisocial behavior, that they are experiencing social rejection, that they are depressed or psychotic, etc) and to get their child to a psychologist.
Clearly a large majority of young people can play games like Grand Theft Auto and not feel compelled to kill cops. The remaining few who commit crimes after playing the game did so because of their own inclination towards violent behavior. But it's easier to say that the child was playing Grand Theft Auto all day long for weeks (as was the case with the boy in Alabama) and blame the game, rather than acknowledging other factors in the young person's life, such as that he was depressed, or that he had no friends, or that he was being teased mercilessly by people at school, or that he had problems controlling his anger and emotions.
It's easier to avoid addressing the reason he was playing GTA all day long for weeks at a time or to consider that dedicating so much time to a single activity for that long is unhealthy in any case. Maybe he was playing GTA by himself in his room for weeks because he was being cast out by his peers, or because playing the game allowed him to shut out unpleasant emotions he was experiencing. Maybe he was playing with his friends and the game was just another aspect of the group's acceptance and promotion of violent behavior.
When the boy in question was arrested, he claimed that, “life is a video game, everybody has to die sometime,” he was either lying to justify his actions or he was in a delusional state. If he was lying than the whole point is moot. If he was delusional, then why not address the factors that caused him to have these delusions?
As long as we keep turning a blind eye to the other important issues that these kids face in addition to their involvement with a videogame, parents will continue to fail to make the connection between those issues and potential homicidal behavior in their kids. The more we ignore it the more it'll persist.
http://diehardgamefan.insidepulse.com/2008/04/22/jack-thompsons-open-letter-to-take-two-ceos-mother/ . Here is a small clip that interested me:
"Mrs. Zelnick, did you train up your son, Strauss, to make millions of dollars by pushing Mature-rated video games to children? Any kid can go right to little Strauss’ corporate web site and buy GTA IV with no age verification. Strauss is even marketing the new Grand Theft Auto IV on World Wrestling Entertainment tv shows seen by millions of kids."
Clearly WWE has enough 18+ viewers to draw the three potential presidential candidates to promote themselves on the show to potential voters. It's not as though GTA advertisements are airing during Hannah Montana (though, as an avid fan of both Grand Theft Auto and Hannah Montana, such an ad placement would certainly hit at least one of their consumers). To imply that the video game shouldn't be advertised anywhere that children might see it is outrageous; not even the alcohol or tobacco industries are held to that standard, and the health defects caused by either of those products are clear and generally without dispute.
Furthermore, any kid can go on the site and buy the game... if they have a credit card. Which means they'd have to have their parents buy it for them unless they have a credit card of their own, in which case parents have plenty of opportunity to monitor their children's purchases on it if they're concerned with what their kids are buying. This is a far cry from a child walking into a store alone and buying it with their saved allowance.
He goes on to mention a boy who murdered cops in Alabama and then stole a cop car and blamed Grand Theft Auto for the whole thing. That case is especially damning because it's similar to a scenario in the game where the character is in a police station and has to free an inmate, kill some cops, and drive off in a cop car outside. When the young man was arrested, he poetically explained that life is a videogame and claimed that Grand Theft Auto made him commit the crime.
I've always been of the opinion that one's actions are one's own responsibility, or in the case of minors, the responsibility of their parents. If a parent doesn't want their child to play violent video games, it's up to the parent to enforce this. This doesn't have to mean monitoring the things their child buys; I think it's up to a parent to educate the child on their family's views and ethics and rules about such things. It's also up to a parent to raise a child to be respectful of their parents' rules (and, for that matter, to teach a child that murder is wrong).
If a child is in the small margin of young people whose use of this media might give them the idea to recreate events they see in the game, beyond even limiting their child's involvement with a game, it's the parent's responsibility to notice red flags (that their child is displaying antisocial behavior, that they are experiencing social rejection, that they are depressed or psychotic, etc) and to get their child to a psychologist.
Clearly a large majority of young people can play games like Grand Theft Auto and not feel compelled to kill cops. The remaining few who commit crimes after playing the game did so because of their own inclination towards violent behavior. But it's easier to say that the child was playing Grand Theft Auto all day long for weeks (as was the case with the boy in Alabama) and blame the game, rather than acknowledging other factors in the young person's life, such as that he was depressed, or that he had no friends, or that he was being teased mercilessly by people at school, or that he had problems controlling his anger and emotions.
It's easier to avoid addressing the reason he was playing GTA all day long for weeks at a time or to consider that dedicating so much time to a single activity for that long is unhealthy in any case. Maybe he was playing GTA by himself in his room for weeks because he was being cast out by his peers, or because playing the game allowed him to shut out unpleasant emotions he was experiencing. Maybe he was playing with his friends and the game was just another aspect of the group's acceptance and promotion of violent behavior.
When the boy in question was arrested, he claimed that, “life is a video game, everybody has to die sometime,” he was either lying to justify his actions or he was in a delusional state. If he was lying than the whole point is moot. If he was delusional, then why not address the factors that caused him to have these delusions?
As long as we keep turning a blind eye to the other important issues that these kids face in addition to their involvement with a videogame, parents will continue to fail to make the connection between those issues and potential homicidal behavior in their kids. The more we ignore it the more it'll persist.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Allowance and Budget
I saw this article on MSN this morning about how kids spend their allowance and I thought it might be interesting from a media literacy perspective. From the girl who gets an allowance of $120 a week to the girl who gets $1 a week, the parents are making an attempt to teach their kids about financial planning and responsibility. I think understanding these things is a big part of teaching youth to be media literate. With the amount of advertising that is aimed at young people, the ability to scrutinize a product for the cost vs. value of the item in question is an important skill.
I wonder how much advice and education kids get about financial planning. I remember a single exercise in one elective class where we were given a bunch of classified ads and a yearly income and we had to choose an apartment and budget for food and expenses. I don't remember any real curriculum in school that taught about investing, loans, credit card management, or figuring out how much of one's income should be set aside for big expenses later. It's really up to the parents to teach their kids these things and I think a lot of young people miss this lesson at home.
I appreciate the lesson that both parents in the article are trying to teach, but I wonder how effective it is. Sure, the girl who gets $120 a week has to understand how to budget the money and use it effectively through the week and she even learns that she has to skimp and save sometimes to get bigger more expensive things she wants, but with the high amount of money she's getting (with no mention of any chores or special tasks she must complete in return, though they may have just cut that part out), it's hard to see that she's really learned the value of each dollar she gets. This is further brought into question when she shows us what she's saved to buy: an $80 gold necklace that says “superfluous” and $120 perfume.
In contrast, the girl who gets a mere dollar a week is learning about more than savings. While she may not be expected to use it to take care of all her expenses for the week, by giving her the motto that she should “save some for now, save some for later, and save some for the poor,” she's learning not just basic budgeting but she's also learning the importance of civic involvement and altruism. Also, by teaching her the benefits of using PayPal to keep her money instead of a savings account, she learns how to evaluate the benefits of one financial institution over another.
I'm curious about how my peers learned about these things growing up. Comment with your experiences if you feel like it.
I wonder how much advice and education kids get about financial planning. I remember a single exercise in one elective class where we were given a bunch of classified ads and a yearly income and we had to choose an apartment and budget for food and expenses. I don't remember any real curriculum in school that taught about investing, loans, credit card management, or figuring out how much of one's income should be set aside for big expenses later. It's really up to the parents to teach their kids these things and I think a lot of young people miss this lesson at home.
I appreciate the lesson that both parents in the article are trying to teach, but I wonder how effective it is. Sure, the girl who gets $120 a week has to understand how to budget the money and use it effectively through the week and she even learns that she has to skimp and save sometimes to get bigger more expensive things she wants, but with the high amount of money she's getting (with no mention of any chores or special tasks she must complete in return, though they may have just cut that part out), it's hard to see that she's really learned the value of each dollar she gets. This is further brought into question when she shows us what she's saved to buy: an $80 gold necklace that says “superfluous” and $120 perfume.
In contrast, the girl who gets a mere dollar a week is learning about more than savings. While she may not be expected to use it to take care of all her expenses for the week, by giving her the motto that she should “save some for now, save some for later, and save some for the poor,” she's learning not just basic budgeting but she's also learning the importance of civic involvement and altruism. Also, by teaching her the benefits of using PayPal to keep her money instead of a savings account, she learns how to evaluate the benefits of one financial institution over another.
I'm curious about how my peers learned about these things growing up. Comment with your experiences if you feel like it.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Storytelling Conventions in Adventure Videogames
Here's my first attempt at a podcast... I've been having the same conversation over and over in different contexts because my YA Lit class, this one, and my family's interests have all been converging lately. How do we understand the media formats as genres? How do we see connections between them or what differences do we see as one story is extended across different formats?
In the sound file below I compare a YA fantasy novel, Sabriel, to the adventure/puzzle games I grew up playing, explaining why similarities across the two formats' storytelling conventions would make this novel a fantastic game. I also touch on other stories that have played out across various media formats, like The Matrix and Joss Whedon's Firefly.
boomp3.com
I'm picturing lots of different scenes from the novel, videogames, television shows, and movies as I discuss them but I can't do "screenshots" for all of them so I've settled for cover images to illustrate my context:
In the sound file below I compare a YA fantasy novel, Sabriel, to the adventure/puzzle games I grew up playing, explaining why similarities across the two formats' storytelling conventions would make this novel a fantastic game. I also touch on other stories that have played out across various media formats, like The Matrix and Joss Whedon's Firefly.
boomp3.com
I'm picturing lots of different scenes from the novel, videogames, television shows, and movies as I discuss them but I can't do "screenshots" for all of them so I've settled for cover images to illustrate my context:
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Fashion & Visual Literacy
We were talking about fashion in my YA Lit class this week, comparing the novel So Yesterday and the Merchants of Cool documentary. When I saw this article in Slate, I thought about those and about some of the questions that had come up here about the "naturalness" of visual literacy:
What's Everybody Scribbling About in Their Notebooks?
by Josh Patner, posted Friday, Feb. 8, 2008, at 6:41 PM ET
The fashion editors and other professionals described in the article depend on these fashion shows for information that is essential to their careers. It's clear that they've come up with a variety of different strategies to help them take it in and process it quickly. Some sketch, some have carefully organized systems for their notes, and some just delegate. But all of them are doing much more than "just watching" as they sit in these audiences.
I'd find it interesting to use this approach with teens as an introduction to visual literacy- ask them how they use visual cues from fashion to get information about people. The movie Mean Girls comes to mind, I know there's already been some discussion of it on the class forums. In my YA Lit class not everyone felt that fashion mattered much to them as kids or to the kids they observe, but it is an omnipresent reality for many people whether you're talking about brand names or tech gadgets or something more expressive of individual creativity.
What's Everybody Scribbling About in Their Notebooks?
by Josh Patner, posted Friday, Feb. 8, 2008, at 6:41 PM ET
The fashion editors and other professionals described in the article depend on these fashion shows for information that is essential to their careers. It's clear that they've come up with a variety of different strategies to help them take it in and process it quickly. Some sketch, some have carefully organized systems for their notes, and some just delegate. But all of them are doing much more than "just watching" as they sit in these audiences.
I'd find it interesting to use this approach with teens as an introduction to visual literacy- ask them how they use visual cues from fashion to get information about people. The movie Mean Girls comes to mind, I know there's already been some discussion of it on the class forums. In my YA Lit class not everyone felt that fashion mattered much to them as kids or to the kids they observe, but it is an omnipresent reality for many people whether you're talking about brand names or tech gadgets or something more expressive of individual creativity.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Visual Literacy & Political Analysis
For my two hours of television programming this week, I've been watching Comedy Central videos for the from A Daily Show and The Colbert Report. It's slightly educational, I suppose, but after Carol pointed out this study on teens and news in her links post and these shows came up frequently, I thought it would be fun to watch and think about from their perspective. The study talks about teens liking these shows but sometimes having to look up more information to understand why their parents were laughing.
I wanted to think about the role allusions play in the information teens get from humor, since many teens do depend on shows like these for their news. Obviously allusions are pretty important to comedy in general - the Simpsons is always packed with them - because they help make the content work on several levels, making it funny to both those "in the know" and those who might not get every detail. But that applies to more than just references to previous events - it also applies to the visual jokes that just don't make sense unless you pay attention to the conventions that surround us in the mass media.
Here's a clip of Jon Stewart looking at some of the standard visual metaphors used in the Super Tuesday coverage last week:
This NY Times article compares the websites of Obama and Clinton to the Mac vs. PC ads:
Is Obama a Mac
and Clinton a PC?
By NOAM COHEN
Published: February 4, 2008
That reminded me of this video from LisaNova on YouTube (also on MAD TV), which takes the visual metaphor one step further:
How do the use of visuals and visual allusions in these pieces add or detract from the points being made? Do you need to have a certain level of visual literacy to understand the points being made or are the article or videos themselves a form of visual literacy instruction?
I wanted to think about the role allusions play in the information teens get from humor, since many teens do depend on shows like these for their news. Obviously allusions are pretty important to comedy in general - the Simpsons is always packed with them - because they help make the content work on several levels, making it funny to both those "in the know" and those who might not get every detail. But that applies to more than just references to previous events - it also applies to the visual jokes that just don't make sense unless you pay attention to the conventions that surround us in the mass media.
Here's a clip of Jon Stewart looking at some of the standard visual metaphors used in the Super Tuesday coverage last week:
This NY Times article compares the websites of Obama and Clinton to the Mac vs. PC ads:Is Obama a Mac
and Clinton a PC?
By NOAM COHEN
Published: February 4, 2008
That reminded me of this video from LisaNova on YouTube (also on MAD TV), which takes the visual metaphor one step further:
How do the use of visuals and visual allusions in these pieces add or detract from the points being made? Do you need to have a certain level of visual literacy to understand the points being made or are the article or videos themselves a form of visual literacy instruction?
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Growing Up Cyberbullied
This is a reply to Becky's post "Online Moratorium" and to some of the comments it has generated about cyberbullying. I have some personal experience with being bullied online as a teen, so I figured I'd write about it. I'm not sure if this post really has to do with media literacy, but on some level it does answer the question posed in our class overview of "How do young people in the United States engage mainstream and new media?"
There was a girl I became friends with one summer. We attended different schools, so it was only natural to talk online once the schoolyear started. But one day I accidentally found her public blog and discovered that she only talked to me in order to make fun of every little detail about my life with her real friends. And no matter how much I tried to talk her out of it, everything I said was just something new to mock on her site. She IMed me every night to tell me what a terrible person I was. Like Becky's post said, anonymity was what helped start the whole thing. Despite her words being in a public place, she assumed I would never find out about her online shenanigans or figure out that she was the site's owner. And when I stumbled upon it and deduced it had to be her, she had no reason to hide from me anymore and became a cyberbully. When I asked why she communicated with someone she professed to hate so much, she said just because she hated me doesn't mean we had to stop talking.
And like Mary said in the comments, you can't erase it and you can go back to it over and over. I used to check the girl's online journal every day to see if she wrote anything new about me. I was depressed and thought about her words constantly. A big part of getting over the ordeal was becoming strong enough to avoid typing in her URL ever again. I had to realize that she wanted me to read terrible things about myself and that she talked to me in order to hurt me. Like many kids are advised today, I blocked her screenname on AIM.
Obviously, this is not a very harsh example of being bullied online. I'm lucky we didn't attend the same school and I had friends who told me I didn't do anything to deserve it. But it ruined my life for a while. Sure, people had said mean things about me in person before, but it tended to come in short bursts from people who barely even knew who I was. This bullying experience really hurt me because (1) she used to be a friend, and (2) was doing this every evening for hours at a time in a place I thought was my personal space.
For the rest of my junior year, I went through a fairly intense period of self-reflection in order to understand what had just happened to me and why. I didn't know it then, but what I went through was a natural part of adolescence. The experience changed me as a person by making me a lot more cynical and giving me a much thicker skin. Did something like this have to happen to me in order for me to grow as a person? Yeah, I think so. I learned a lot about communication, what works and what doesn't work. I learned when to fight and when to let things go. I learned how to take care of myself. Based on my limited experience, I would say that to some degree cyberbullying is simply a new facet of the pained, familiar thing that is adolescence. Teens (as well as kids and adults) have to learn to become responsible as people, whether it's resisting the urge to take advantage of somebody or learning not to be taken advantage of. This responsibility is something that has to be learned both online and offline. I'm guessing one quickly follows the other.
(I don't know why, but every once in a while she messages me on Facebook.)
There was a girl I became friends with one summer. We attended different schools, so it was only natural to talk online once the schoolyear started. But one day I accidentally found her public blog and discovered that she only talked to me in order to make fun of every little detail about my life with her real friends. And no matter how much I tried to talk her out of it, everything I said was just something new to mock on her site. She IMed me every night to tell me what a terrible person I was. Like Becky's post said, anonymity was what helped start the whole thing. Despite her words being in a public place, she assumed I would never find out about her online shenanigans or figure out that she was the site's owner. And when I stumbled upon it and deduced it had to be her, she had no reason to hide from me anymore and became a cyberbully. When I asked why she communicated with someone she professed to hate so much, she said just because she hated me doesn't mean we had to stop talking.
And like Mary said in the comments, you can't erase it and you can go back to it over and over. I used to check the girl's online journal every day to see if she wrote anything new about me. I was depressed and thought about her words constantly. A big part of getting over the ordeal was becoming strong enough to avoid typing in her URL ever again. I had to realize that she wanted me to read terrible things about myself and that she talked to me in order to hurt me. Like many kids are advised today, I blocked her screenname on AIM.
Obviously, this is not a very harsh example of being bullied online. I'm lucky we didn't attend the same school and I had friends who told me I didn't do anything to deserve it. But it ruined my life for a while. Sure, people had said mean things about me in person before, but it tended to come in short bursts from people who barely even knew who I was. This bullying experience really hurt me because (1) she used to be a friend, and (2) was doing this every evening for hours at a time in a place I thought was my personal space.
For the rest of my junior year, I went through a fairly intense period of self-reflection in order to understand what had just happened to me and why. I didn't know it then, but what I went through was a natural part of adolescence. The experience changed me as a person by making me a lot more cynical and giving me a much thicker skin. Did something like this have to happen to me in order for me to grow as a person? Yeah, I think so. I learned a lot about communication, what works and what doesn't work. I learned when to fight and when to let things go. I learned how to take care of myself. Based on my limited experience, I would say that to some degree cyberbullying is simply a new facet of the pained, familiar thing that is adolescence. Teens (as well as kids and adults) have to learn to become responsible as people, whether it's resisting the urge to take advantage of somebody or learning not to be taken advantage of. This responsibility is something that has to be learned both online and offline. I'm guessing one quickly follows the other.
(I don't know why, but every once in a while she messages me on Facebook.)
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