PerthNorg

Yeah had a big rant about that yesterday on Twitter and on News.com.au too … although they only published one of my two comments which I’m a bit cranky about.

From the article:

Websites had fundamentally changed the way young people related to each other, he said, and this could be linked to the increase in youth crime.

“It’s generated competition and encouraged them to look at ways of gaining status,” Professor Mazerolle said.

“Young people want to demonstrate superiority and toughness. That’s why we’ve seen a proliferation of things like the videotaping of violent confrontations.

I really can’t understand how making more friends on Facebook (and elevating status) could lead to more violence? You have to wonder if the people being quoted in the media have any experience using these social networks. Never mind that gaining status is NOT “new behaviour” it’s natural behaviour being mimicked online - I’m sick of reading about “Myspace suicides” and “YouTube rapists”. People committed those crimes, not the social networks. If anything they are just reflections on our society - let’s deal with the real problems!

It is bad form of news.com.au to report this information and present it as fact - they have a vested interest in undermining sites like facebook and youtube who are the mainstay for younger audiences.

I think that this is attesting to the fact that we do not want to miss our opportunity while we have it.  Web 2.0 and the emergence of the new expressions mean that you do not stand alone, because we know that iPod is a phase I imagine that there is an inclusion principle which will soon replace competition, emphasis on collaboration, exclusion is elitism, since inclusion becomes modern.