The Internet is for your kids!
I know I usually do not blog that much without having some images to share, but I just stumbled about an article that made me think of a topic that is really important to me: Oxhorn’s latest blog entry on the attitude of internet-kids nowadays and how they treat copyright.
Today, I simply want to say that the attitude of self-entitlement is a blight that the Internet is rife with, and has become a tumor-shaped nugget within the character of the every-man.
Solution? Parenting. Parents, spank your kids. Make them fear you as much as they love you. Make them work from a young age to earn their allowance, computer, computer time and video games. Hesiod mastered this one five thousand years ago. What builds character? Work with work upon work.
[Oxhorn]
It made me think about parenting and how my son (4) does and how he should look at the world, the internet, the possibilites.
Kids today, growing up with the internet and the possibility to get everything they want whenever they want for free do not seem to grab the idea behind copyright unless they actually do create something of their own. The internet is an all-access-pass and it is always there. And because you can get most of the stuff for free, it is not okay, if someone charges for something or asks for donations.
I think the best we can do is teach our kids the same values there always were, but make them realise right from the youngest age on that these values count on the internet as well.
We are in a place where we are actually able to teach our kids right from the beginning how to use the internet in a good way. So do it! Look at what your kid is doing online and change his/her way of looking at what is an anonymous world to older people. Teach them to honor someone else’s work and that paying money for pixels is not weird. (Who has not heard that argument when it came to paying for server access in an MMO or donations for programs etc – you were able to play Diablo for free online, so why pay for WoW? Damn you companies who want to make money!)
In our world, going to the movies and paying 20 bucks for that is normal, but paying less money on the net for the same movie seems weird.
Teach your kid that it is not! It is the same work!
But most of all: Teach your kid at all! The worst thing I see nowadays is parents and teachers, who think that the internet (and especially games) are the root of all evil and just forbid it. Do you think that by totally controlling the access to e.g. games, your kid will stay away from it forever? Do you think your kid is the only one that will not get addicted to a game, chatroom etc. because you will not allow it?
Yes, we need to control what our kids see and use. But we also need to teach them how to use it when they are old enough. And you can start doing that at an early age. The usage of the internet and all of its aspects should be something normal to our kids, as well as playing outside with friends. Teach your kid how to find the balance, how to tell right from wrong. Encourage your kid to answer all his/her questions online and most important … make your kid realise that there are actual people, actual work behind the things online!
And by the way: Anyone who has a kid at the age when they start questioning EVERYTHING should be in love with google, youtube and/or wikipedia. I know I am!
