Growing up online

15 tings that did not surprise me:

1. This generation and socialization of technology would continue throughout life.
2. Teenagers needed to have the Internet to talk to their friends: without the Internet they would become a loss.
3. Teachers teach cyber citizenship and how to use technology responsibly.
4. Students can't focus, because they are overexposed to the quickness and the media responses.
5. The computer has amplified and exhilarated the suffer the victims of bullying had in the real world. The Internet has become a new weapon for adolescents.
6. Our generation take it much less seriously about public privacy.
7.  Some boyfriends/ girlfriends, and relations are all online
8. Social networking sites are digital representations of teenagers, and Internet allowed them to show their identity in a distinct way. 
9. In the Internet, someone can always find anything: the online predators (sex and stalkers can find any information about you online).
10. Cyberbullying is a form of bullying done online, which can equally hurt the child as much as face-to-face bullying.
11. Small, friendly, safe, protective town can become dangerous because the Internet has punctured the sense of security.
12. Parents need to take control of their children's internet security and have passwords.
13. A lot of teenagers don't want their parents to care about their personal information online and would rather use the Internet while their parents aren't looking.
14. There are lots of teenagers/kids who committed suicided and thought about death due to cyber bullying, such as Ryan.
15. Parents are worried that her good kids would make bad decision through the Internet and that behavior would pay permanently.
16. Most social interaction is done through the Internet nowadays, and if you don't have it you would become excluded or socially isolated.

15 things that surprised me and why:

1. For teenagers, the Internet is used for self expression to insult their parents: This surprised me because usually I never post  public videos online, unless it's a project or a homework. Even if I would, I would never insult my parents, and I would rather talk to them, instead of complaining it to strangers I've never met.
2. Huge shift of the technology resulted in technology being a property of adults to teenagers. This is rather a disagreement than a surprise, because I believe that the Internet is everybody's property: old and young, rich and poor, Asian or American. 
3. A lot of parties are done through technology (games and Youtube videos). That surprised me because I would never want to do parties with games and technology, and I would rather talk to my friends.
4. It's an intrusion for parents to interrupt their child while they're with their friends through technology: When my parents look at me talking with a friend through the Internet, I don't feel intruded, but sometimes I want to keep it private.
5. Parents are the one who ask their child of how to use technology: In our house, the case is quite the opposite. I ask my dad for advice about technology.
6. Some parents monitor the child's Internet, so the kids slide in fake information so that parents would think they're actually studying and researching: My mom has never monitored my Internet- (don't know if it's laziness or if they believe in me) and I don't slide in fake information in my own computer to deceive my parents.
7. There's a competition of who can have the most online friends. Most of the kids only have 200 friends who really know each other, and they don't know the rest of them. If you have 2000 friends online, everybody would see you as big or popular. I don't quite agree to that, because sometimes popular kids have few Facebook friends. It was also interesting to find out that you only know 10% of your Facebook friends really well.
8. Teachers let the students take over the class through technology. It's not the case for the classes in Colegio Nueva Granada, and we don't go up and use the smartboards.
9. Most of the Internet users believe that we need to teach ourselves and our kids that the Internet is a part of our life today. Some people are glad it's there. One girl, called Jessica was posting inappropriate photos of herself, and she was pretty famous with lots of online friends. She had a big disagreement with her parents when they found out, but now that she had recovered, her parents are glad she is using technology all over again,
10. Internet has created the biggest generation gap, and parents wonder where they'll go next. I agree with this statement, and I didn't know it was the technology that caused all the disagreements between teenagers and parents these days, and I found it interesting that some parents can't understand you because they didn't have technology in their days, and they haven't used Internet during their teenage days.
11. There are so many devices to connect hot spots besides the house where parents can't control their kids. This is actually quite a surprise, because in Colombia, it is very hard to find free Internet in public.
12. Students never read books and they are too busy, so they read Spark Notes and read everything online in five minutes. This was rather a disagreement than a surprise, because in CNG, a lot of people actually read the books instead of reading online Spark Notes.
13. In classes, teachers use technology such as smart boards and become entertainers. Using technology is the only way for teachers to capture the student's attention. That is not true, because a lot of students pay attention to their teacher even if they don't use high-tech cool technology. 
14. Some students are going to college where they withdraw from the Internet and they don't have access to technology for two months. This was interesting, because usually colleges leave you a bunch of research projects, and without Internet, this work would be extremely hard. But still it would be a great experience to withdraw from technology and use BOOKS and ENCYCLOPAEDIAS in the library for research, instead of Google and Wikipedia.
15. Teenagers don't want to talk to their parents, because the Internet is very seductive, and the whole world is there to listen. I have never thought that way, and I usually don't express myself a lot through the Internet worldwide, because I'm afraid of showing my face public.
16. There is one department that keeps an eye in sex crime: 1 in 7 kids have been sexually solicited online. Kids think it's not big of a deal and don't consider it as a serious problem. The statistics show that it is extremely serious and the probability of being sexually solicited is pretty high. I hope the department would keep more eyes and research about this more severely.

15 things that have changed about technology since this video was made (2008)

1. In 2008, MySpace was the new "in, and Club penguin was extremely popular as an online game for kids.
2. When class is over, students would go to social networking sites, such as Zanga, Bebo, Myspace, and  LifeJournal. I've never heard of those websites except for MySpace.
3.  In Facebook and Myspace, there were 160 million members combined in 2008.
4. Everyone had Myspace, including the geeks and nerds: it showed all your profile and your personality
5. The cellphones in 2008 were not smartphones or blackberries, and I only saw one Iphone1. Everybody had flip phones.
6. Youtube had worse quality, than now.
7. Iphones has dominated the mobile industry, and Apple and Samsung are dominating the electronic business.
8. iPads are a major sensation nowadays, and it became famous since 2010. In 2008, people would never have thought that electronic pads existed.
9. Microsoft Windows was bigger in 2008, and there were comparatively few Mac users.
10. WhatsApp has been created, and teenagers text each other with WhatsApp these days, not with messages.
11. Nearly everyone have ipods or iPads or smartphones these days. Through these devices, you can buy apps from the App store. The App store has been very popular and useful since then. 
12. I bet more people use the Internet than they did in 2008, but I think they are more informed than they were 5 years ago because schools constantly give education and there has been more awareness of Internet security since then.
13. There are many users of Instagram, too. The hashtag sensation is going on around the world, and teenagers use it to share photos and gain followers. Snapchat is also very popular, for private photo conversations.
14. Now, not so many people read books paper back, and they don't use Spark Notes either. They read with their Kindle, which gives us much more easier access to electronic books.
15. The Internet probably became much more faster than 5 years ago.

Answer the questions with A MINIMUM OF 5 SENTENCES EACH.

1. What advice do you have to parents about kids being online (should they have your password, be your friend on Facebook, monitor your texts... what should or shouldn't they do? why?)?
    Parents should install filters and special programs on their child's phone or computers. These filters and other internet safety tools can block inappropriate websites teenagers can see, such as violent, illegal, and sexually inappropriate sites. Parents should also help their children when their children are editing privacy account settings in their Facebook pages. They should monitor the text contact information, like who they've been texting, but if they also look at each text and its content, the child would feel like the parent is invading privacy. The method which Evan from the movie used was a clever solution, the mom kept an enveloped sealed with the password, and check it only if the mom is doubtful of the child's actions at the Internet.

2. What are the biggest benefits of being online, for you, personally?

For me, the biggest benefits of being online is getting help for homework. Everytime I do a project or if I have to research something, it is so easy to search for it in Google, and cite it. Also, I can socially interact with my friends, and that is a major benefit because I can ask them of homework, and ask them how to solve a math problem. Since I have lots of friends in Korea, the United States, and Mexico, it is hard to meet them face-to-face when I am living in Colombia. Being in Facebook, talking to them through Skype and texting them through WhatsApp makes it much more easier to communicate with them. I miss them a lot, and if it wasn't for technology it would have been hard to talk to them.

3. What topic in the video was the most UNLIKE your own experiences online and why?
The topic that was the most unlike my own experience online was cyberbullying or online-sex crimes. I've never been a victim of either of those, and I was very informed about these serious issues in my old schools, my parents, and in CNG. When I talk to my friends through the Internet, I feel comfortable and I'm happy that I actually have somebody to ask when I need help urgently. I've never been sexually solicited, so I've never experience either of those problems. I've never seen a kid who was cyber bullied, or sexually solicited- I've only read about them in the Internet and the media. Everytime I hear about them, I am extra careful on what I do online and check if my privacy settings are secure.