Digiphobia: my generation's inheritance.
Introduction
This morning, in the newspaper I read, there was an article about Virtual Dangers. Conclusion of the psychologist who wrote it was somewhere along the lines of the general opinion that internet and in fact all computer-usage is dangerous. Of course, it was merely a Dutch translation of one of those FOX-News stories of the next big thing that's going to kill our offspring. But then again, it annoyed me. In little columns there were examples of children who had secretly spent their money on virtual items in games I shall not name, and vicious conflicts about computer-usage times in the family. These were accompanied by screenshots of MMO-websites in that other browser, yes that one. By writing this article, I will try to underline the vast majority of internet-users. We are not all 12-year-olds who have never been disciplined by their parents, neither are we Asian misfits who have nothing better to do than playing WoW for 50 hours with few breaks. I believe that this fear of a technology that enables mass communication and influences the next generation, named digiphobia hereafter, is the result of general ignorance among the older generations. Instead of having them educate us about the horrors of the intertubes, I think we have a lot to learn them. So please, show this to the people that believe these FOX-like stories, your parents or colleagues who show symptoms of digiphobia. I will try to name some of the causes and their misunderstandings.
Grose overstatemens
Does anyone remember this article? (Typed-out version here) Some bigshot commented that these fellows called hackers, you know, those meanies of the interweb, can turn your home computer into a BOMB! That's right dear people, a BOMB! The horror! A simple email attachment could wreak havoc upon me and possibly my family as due to some arcane computery magic the essentially nonexplosive PC-parts explode! MythBusters anyone? Surely, certain types of old computers can produce smoke or catch fire if you write some kind of assembly-program that starts moving a mechanical part at a rate it was never meant to attain. And yeah, it is certainly not very wise to block your cpu- or gpu-fan. But a bomb? Come on people, this an urban legend just like the many tales originating from this very same internet.
Sheer stupidity
As a former WoW-player myself (and that's not a confession), I vividly remember the newsitem about this South-Korean bloke who gamed himself to death after playing 50 hours without a proper break. Since then, I think about two trustable stories popped out about somebody gaming themselve to death. Generally, these people died from dehydration. What most people fail to realize is that the object related to these kinds of death is utterly irrelevant. Sure, if I talked nonstop for 48 hours, or watched tv for that amount of time, I would surely die. Does that mean that all TV's or in fact tongues are evil, or for that matter, the people who utilize them? By all means, no! A person that does not know when to stop can die doing just one thing, given the right amount of time. Does that mean we should treat these deaths as anomalies in human nature? My answer: while sad, yes. That does not mean you can't sit down and have a good talk with your kid about computer-usage times. But it certainly does not mean you should jump up in fear at the sight of this kind of news, spouting new rules because somebody was not wise enough to take care of himself.
Looking from afar
As I mentioned, I played WoW. In fact, I played it for quite some time. I had two top-level characters and during some holidays I stayed up late playing this game. I started playing with some people I knew in real life. It was a lot of fun, we had some good laughs on TeamSpeak and it even helped me to improve my English (I am not a native speaker, you should have noticed that by now ;P). And I can guarantee you that none of them ended up in the sewer looking for another shot of internet. All of them are still going to High School, one of us is preparing for his exams. And the majority of us has got courses in Latin in their study choice. The people I have met whilst playing side by side with my guild were actually really nice, mature people. Scotsmen, Swedish housewives and Czech students, we all got along. I can even say that the experience broadened my world view and contributed a great part to my maturity. And I know for a fact that there are certainly people who played the game too much. But how many of them actually died from it? And compare that number to the number of people dying in freak household-material accidents.
Conclusion
If you catch my drift: anything can kill you and there will always be a risk, no matter how small, in your everyday life. Parents should not put the blame on companies like Blizzard or Jagex because they make games that their children play. Parents should mark clear borders for their children and inforce punishment when those borders are crossed. But these borders should not be established through monologue and popular misconceptions about internet. They should talk with their children, whether they like it or not, and listen to them. As I stated earlier: children often know more about the internet than their parents do. It is certainly not a good idea to inforce delusions about a big and scary place while in fact, it can be so joyous if you only take care of where you are going. In this changing society, you should allow us to explore freely. For internet is our newfound playground and educational indeed. Surely, it has its pointy bushes and digitalis (forgive the horrible pun) rooting here and there. And if you just indicate that they are wrong, no more futher talk is needed.
