In an on going study of the online lives of adolescents by PBS.com and FRONTLINE directed by Rachel Dretzin and John Maggio, parents and teachers express concern of the safety of their children and students of the effects of online lives that are difficult or impossible for parents to monitor. The direct concern of adults is sexual predators, but this may be an almost unnecessary worry. Teens today are more exposed than ever, creating drastic repercussions for their online behavior when it actually starts to bleed over in to the offline arena. The new digital reality the actual dangers of online life can be better expressed in the story of Ryan Halligan, a victim of “Cyber-bullying,” where traditional schoolyard taunts have taken on a new life online, creating no escape for victims since their lives are so heavily integrated with online social networking sites and texting. Ryan was bullied for months preceding his suicide in 2003 when he hung himself in his bathroom. Online threats today are very real, and very close to home. Ryan’s father is one of many interviewed in FRONTLINE’s video report: "I clearly made a mistake putting that computer in his room. I allowed the computer to become too much of his life," Halligan tells FRONTLINE. "The computer and the Internet were not the cause of my son's suicide, but I believe they helped amplify and accelerate the hurt and the pain that he was trying to deal with that started in person, in the real world."
If I were to write a paper on the effects of the digital world on my life I would probably write about how the internet and texting has left me unprepared to have real relationships with people and left me struggling to establish relationships outside of the a digital forum with underdeveloped skills to do so.
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