Sample Thought Point Paper

Tapscott, D. (1998). The N-Gen Mind: Part I. In D. Tapscott, Growing Up Digital. NY: McGraw Hill.

            Tapscott in his N-Gen mind chapter provides a lot of evidence as to why it is beneficial for children to grow up digital.  It is a very utopian view of the Internet and computing technology with relation to children.  I think that he gloss over a great deal of possible negative effects of this new technology.  Tapscott also neglected to offer any caveats to parents and educator about these possible perils to children.  This technology can as he stated have many positive benefits to children, but the negative effects could also be severe.

            In his second impression of the N-Gen he states that computers are helping us raise a curious generation.  To use the old cliché, curiosity killed the cat.  Children are naturally curious, granted, and that is a good thing.  However unbridled curiosity on the Internet can have very negative consequences.  There is no regulation or control of information on the Internet; therefore it is up to the parents to constrain their child’s curiosity.  Parents must take a more active role in their child’s exploration when they have access to the Internet.  Tapscott also states that children are becoming more assertive and self-reliant.  Again, this is not inherently a bad thing.  However when many children today now know more about computers and the Internet, coupled with this new found assertive behavior could prove be a recipe for trouble.  Many children who know more about the Internet than their parents assume that their parents know nothing when it comes to Internet topics, ethics, morality, security, etc.  These children may disregard their parents’ warnings when it comes to computers.  If a novice parent tell their child not to arrange meetings or give their address to people that chat with, the child may think the parent know nothing about “netiquette” and disregard their rules.  Many children will value what an “experienced” stranger says in a chat room more so than what a parent tell them.  When the parent is a novice at computers the child looks for guidance to other peers or people them meet on the Internet.

            Tapscott also stresses the benefits to a child’s personality that the Internet and peer to peer communication can have on children.  Children who are physically handicapped can feel good about themselves when on the Internet.  Since no one can see them, they are not pre-judged in chat rooms.  However, the benefits to self esteem according to Mckenna & Bargh (1998) only occur if the individual is active in chatting.  Simply logging on and reading messages from others are not sufficient.  Also when children adopt new identities, Turkle and Tapscott both feel that this is harmless and in fact beneficial for the child.  I have seen know evidence that this is the case.  Turkle offers up anecdotal evidence about how multiple personalities disorder results from a traumatic event in the child’s life.  Although the child may not develop this disorder from creating various identities or avatars they may affect children in other unknown ways.  What if a child becomes attached to an identity online and the MUD is taken offline?  How would losing that identity affect the child, would there self-esteem increase in this case, how readily would they adopt a new identity.  I think there are potentially harmful effects that could occur from having multiple selves.