Catshanghai

Critics are going to use these stories to argue that modern technology is being used by teenagers to accelerate society’s moral decline.

Story 1: Bogus Craigslist Ad Leads to Destruction of a House
Craigslist is a free and popular Internet classified advertising service that was recently abused by a tenant who posted a fake ad in retaliation for being evicted from a house in Tacoma near Seattle.

The ad posted last weekend welcomed people to take for free anything they wanted from the home. It has since been pulled from the site, but not before the residence was stripped of light fixtures, the hot water heater and the kitchen sink.

Neighbors said they saw strangers hauling items away, apparently looking for salvage material.

Even the front door and a vinyl window were pilfered, Raye said.

Source:  Seattle Times

Story 2: Teenager Invited Myspace Friends to Trash Parent’s House.
This is a parent’s nightmare. They come home from holiday to find their teenage daughter has organised a party in their absence causing thousands in cleanup and repair costs.

Up to 200 teenagers from across the country trashed a family house while the parents were away after their daughter advertised a party on MySpace, police said today.

Revellers caused £20,000 of damage to the £230,000 property after the invitation for the Easter Monday celebration was posted on the popular site as a “Skins Unofficial Party” - a reference to the controversial Channel 4 series which featured scenes where a teenage get-together got out of hand.

Partygoers allegedly urinated on the mother’s wedding dress and children’s clothes; stole cash and jewellery; ripped light fittings from the ceiling by swinging on them; stubbed out cigarettes on the carpet; vomited throughout the house and barricaded the back door to prevent neighbours from intervening.

Source: Guardian

Story 3: UK Teenagers are Bullying Teachers With Youtube Videos
On Tuesday, teachers and ministers called for action to halt the use of mobile phones and the Internet to spread embarrassing images of teachers.

Increasing numbers are being humiliated by “obscene” photographs and video clips posted on websites such as YouTube. These include pictures of teachers’ cleavages or taken up their skirts.

There have also been cases involving images of teachers transposed on to pornographic pictures.

Source: Daily Mail

It is easy to blame the Internet for facilitating the damage caused by all this teenage mischief, but is it so different to the pranks carried out by youngsters in earlier eras? It is only the instantaneous ability to share such misbehaviour among so many that sets the digital miscreants apart. Perhaps there is a wider moral decay in process, but I want to look for solutions inside and outside the Internet.

Families, friendship groups and communities need to enjoy quality face to face social time together whether it is eating dinner or throwing a frisbee around a park. We probably spend too much of our lives in front of a screen for our own good, but it is almost unavoidable. This means we also need to look at ways that technology can be managed and harnessed to remedy and even prevent the harmful effects of bogus ads, mischievous mass party invitations and youtube abuse.

The long term answer does not lie in banning mobile phones and social networking sites from schools in the hope that this problem goes away. We need to learn from successful communities such as Wikipedia that have managed to create a committed core of users who enforce a culture promoting respect and integrity while rejecting anti social behaviour. For example, if you vandalise a Wikipedia page, the community is likely to correct the entry in minutes. If the problem persists then Wikipedia will block that page for a couple of days and ban the user as a last resort. The point is that community members need to share responsibility for creatively policing a site as well as generating its content.