The Changeling

Blog Reflection 4

The emphasis in Part II of After the Death of Childhood: Growing up in the Age of Electronic Media shifts toward an exploration of the perceived changes in people’s definitions of childhood. One interesting trend brought up in Chapter 4 (“Changing Childhoods”) is that children are finding that much of their free time is now spend inside the home, rather than away from the home. Therefore, today’s children are a more captive audience. This puts them in a position where they are made to be easier targets for television programmers and their advertising sponsors. The implication here is that television and the Internet are becoming a secondary education system that may either enhance or detract from the education they receive at school. Whether this helps or hurts the education of today’s kids would largely depend on the programs they watch or the websites they frequent.

I think the most disturbing point brought up by Buckingham in this segment of the book is that since children are spending more time in their own homes their free time is becoming increasingly “curricularized” (Buckingham, p. 67). This paints a picture of a child having much of their waking day structured around time spent at school, watching television, or cruising cyberspace. I would say such a dark scenario could be a reality in the lives of kids who have parents who are perpetually oblivious to their children’s viewing habits for both television and the Internet. But Buckingham does steer this book’s voyage into some more promising waters when he mentions the potential behind much of the new electronic media out there.

Buckingham points out that technology is allowing increasingly younger users to individualize and, in some cases, customize the content they see in electronic media. While the book was printed well before the revolutions of MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube, it seems that Buckingham had his finger on the pulse of an emerging trend just before it broke. As an educator, I am both interested in and repulsed by the potential that such social networking platforms hold. I can’t begin to count the times I’ve heard students discussing how much time they had spent the night before chatting on MySpace instead of studying or doing their homework. But, if given the proper guidance and sense of ethics, today’s students are at the threshold of becoming the next generation of writers, musicians, and cinematographers. The Internet technology of the past 5 years may have as profound an impact on a person’s ability to reach a widespread audience since the invention of Gutenberg’s printing press in the 15^th century. Most, if not all of the social networking sites mentioned here are blocked by school districts across the nation. But if students and educators can find a link between the skills developed on social networking sites and academic or professional success, it might cause districts to reconsider their policy towards some social networking opportunities.