In an effort to delay doing my taxes, I’ve been reading on-line quite a bit. I was pleased to get my subscription notice that Dom Coccaro published something at Associated Content.
Dom’s story revolves around changing his MySpace profile on a lark. Here is his opening paragraph:
Like most 23-year-olds, I have a MySpace page. Like most MySpace users, I frequently change my profile out of boredom. It was this state of roving restlessness that moved me to change my display name to Zac Efron. My friends found it to be amusing, so I went the extra mile and slapped a picture of Smiley Tween (not to be confused with Sweeney Todd) on my page. Little did I know that I would soon become Zac Efron in the eyes of his adoring fans.
I encourage you to read the whole story. The results of Dom’s little joke should really open your eyes. Parents, I’m looking at you. You’re not paying attention to what your children are doing on the internet. Maybe you’re not paying attention to them at all. I don’t know. What I do know is, if anyone one but Dom had tried this, there might be some kid’s body in a ditch right now.
Dom admits the whole thing scared him, “The scariest thing that I learned from this experiment is how little effort it takes to be a predator.” Where are you parents? You are supposed to be preparing these rug-rats for life. Turning your curtain-climbers loose on the net is not good parenting. I can only imagine the parents of these kids are probably hold up in the other room, updating their own MySpace page, flirting with their bodiless friends, and bouncing between 10 instant message windows.
What kind of adults will these little idiots grow into? I doubt they will reach adulthood with any decent social skills or common sense. The term “common sense” will go the way of the Dodo bird when it is no longer common. How long until the human race abandons verbal communication? How long until we can only communicate via keyboard? How long has it been since you had a shower? Get off the net and talk to your kids, you drooling, MySpace-addicted lemmings.
If you want to see what happens to kids who spend too much time on the net, check this out. Here is a sociopath in the making.
