The Kids Aren’t Alright

Posted on April 26, 2005

Wow, who knew kids were this dumb?

East Valley parents will not have to snoop around this prom season to read about the event in their children’s diaries. Students who used to lock their diaries in their bedrooms now post their daily confessions, rantings and exploits for the world to see on Web logs — or blogs…
A LiveJournal search this week for Scottsdale children between 14 and 18 produced more than 1,000 matches. Among that group, six teens listed drama as an interest, 14 listed band and 27 listed sex.
“I think you need to be concerned as a parent, and then become informed,” [Mesa Unified School District webmaster Loyal] Clarke said.
A good way to start, he said, would be for parents to read their children’s
blogs.
“It’s perfectly ethical to do that,” he said. “The kids are making it public to the world, and parents are part of that world.”
But Corona del Sol freshman Sarah Hayden, 14, disagreed.
“It would be just as if they were sneaking into our room and looking through a diary,” she said, “because they would be doing it when they know that we don’t want them to.”

Um, no, Sarah. See, it’s different than sneaking into your room and reading your diary, because you didn’t keep your diary locked in your room — you put your diary on the Internet!

Nobody loves blogs more than I do, but come on, if you don’t want people reading something, don’t put it on a public network. Not that hard to figure out, I would think, and apparently I would be wrong. (sigh)