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Monday Aug 14, 2006
The darker quirkier side of the online world
Is there a tendency for the mainstream media to obscure the debate on the social impacts of the internet for young people with a tendency to focus on the darker quirkier side of the online world? Add China into the mix, already known as a source of quirky news items, and you have an irresistible blend for Western journalists looking for a story.
Channel Four recently broadcast a piece via More 4 by Poppy Sebag-Montefiore on how the internet is playing a part in young Chinese people expressing a 'new' nationalism. Sebag-Montefiore recently ran another story on Channel Four about the Chinese youth who are addicted to the internet. In an online chat Sebag-Montefiore defined addiction as:
"User: How would you Define Internet addiction. I spend 3-4 hours on the Internet a night 4 days per week. would you say that i am an addict?
Poppy Sebag-Montefiore: Well, the director of the new internet clinic defines it as someone who goes online for at least 4-5 hours a day on average over a year but I don't think that seems all that much personally but I know people who spend a lot more time than that and don't consider themselves addicted to the net."
Who's pigeon holing who here? The piece on 'internet addiction' actually referred to specific limited cases of online gaming addiction, in particular where a "World of Warcraft" gamer died after several days of continuous gaming.
These types of stories although genuinely worrying, can be unhelpful to the general debate on the internet. It tends to pander to the fears of those who have very little personal experience of online communities, and who necessarily find it harder to balance the negative against the positive aspects less frequently discussed by the mainstream offline media. When asked whether she'd tried any online games herself, even reporter Sebag-Montefiore had to admit in a webchat after her report was broadcast :
"No I never have. I have tried some console games before but I just wasn't very good at using them and I got quite bored after a few minutes but I do use the Internet for other things. I think I probably use it too much but when I was in China, working on this piece, I began to get a sense of what it's like to be part of an online community and it sounded quite exciting."
There's a clear public interest claim for readily publicising the health risks of the internet, but this interest also extends to publicising the health benefits that new online initiatives afford. Organisations like the Samaritans and Saneline have been able to support thousands of people in the UK through quick, efficient and confidential services made possible by the internet. Both organisations partner YouthNet in providing our online askTheSite service which allows users to put personal questions to qualified experts -just a part of an all too often overlooked bigger picture.
Here's hoping the 'mainstream media' start looking more at the 'mainstream internet' where their viewers are going to in increasingly mainstream numbers.
http://www.mediasnackers.com/report/2006/August/14/135/
Posted by DK on August 14, 2006 at 04:51 PM GMT+00:00 #
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