Growing up online-Understanding impact of technology on adolescents

By Brittany Greene
College of Education
Long Island University, C. W. Post
March, 2011

I found the movie Growing Up Online very interesting. One of the teachers that were interviewed explained how she wasn’t familiar with all the technology used in her classroom. She also explained how her students needed to help her figure out some of the gadgets. This made me think of my experience working at a day camp over the summer. I’m a bus counselor (I just keep track of the kids on the bus and make sure everyone is okay and having fun) and I like to play music on my speakers from my iTouch so the kids can listen and sing along. I made a bus playlist and would put it on shuffle so the music playing were all clean and appropriate songs. I also allowed the kids to hold my speakers (they thought it was the coolest thing), after the first week I realized the kids knew how to change the songs and change the playlists! I understood that the kids from ages ten and up could figure it out, but not my five year olds! They’re so young and knew how to work the thing better than I can! I had to make sure I set some rules with the iTouch after that because I didn’t want them to hear music that wasn’t suitable for their ears! Experiencing this definitely showed me that kids just have a way with technology and I feel that it’s going to become more and more natural for kids to know how to work technology.