Today was my first day back in the classroom, and I had my new students read an essay titled "What Adolescents Lose by Growing up in Cyberspace." It was all about how teens (and adults, really) spend so much time online--shopping, surfing, socializing--that social interaction in our society has decreased significantly over the last 10-15 years.
I asked them to read and then to respond. I really wanted to know what they thought. I figured most of them would disagree, since the Internet is really where they socialize and develop their identities and meet people and make plans and fight and make up and...
Out of 32 students, 2 disagreed with the article. The rest agreed whole-heartedly and, really, it was almost sad to see how aware they are of the social and person-to-person skills they know they do not have. The Internet gives us so much in terms of resources. But what has it taken away?
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