WTF, Frontline?

On the Jan. 22 Frontline documentary “Growing Up Online,” WGBH Boston producers set out to answer, “Just how radically is the Internet transforming the experience of childhood?”

Chronicling teens’ use of the Internet as a communication, information and social networking tool, Frontline interlaces personal stories with the insights of various experts. Presenting two New Jersey high schools as Anytown, U.S.A., “Growing Up” includes stories of gaming addicts’ all-night binges, a 14-year-old’s MySpace alter-ego, a mother’s battles for control, communities of anorexics furthering their diseases and even a case of cyber bullying gone wrong.

Though Frontline debunks the moral panic over pedophiles and predators, the response inadequately shows the Internet’s cultural impacts in growing up today. The Internet’s positive potential — for decentralization of power, an increase in self-empowerment and the spread of knowledge — is instead presented as problematic for health, communication, attention spans and even the core of our very society.

Rather than highlighting the latest generation gap, Frontline could have confronted the very forces which are making this gap worse.

In their efforts to show kids tethered to YouTube, they overlooked the amazing Do-It-Yourself cultural revolution that challenges the war over intellectual properties. While powerful lobbyists representing the film, music and television conglomerates restrict the use of any and all IP — even within the realm of Fair Use and non-commercial culture — WGBH, this bastion of the free, public media, fails to stand up for independence.

In their efforts to portray young students as cheaters and indifferent to the western classics, Frontline overlooked the fact that 22 percent of America’s public teachers will retire between 2005 and 2010 according to the National Center for Education Information. Without any incentive for continuing education or job security, should we really expect these veteran teachers to engage students?

Frontline’s intent with “Growing Up Online” was to educate parents about their kids’ behaviors. Did they sensationalize the Internet’s cultural revolution and vacuum of power to gain viewership? While browsing YouTube, did they overlook the amazing presentations of Michael Wesch, Kansas State University professor, about the power of Web 2.0?

Finally, did WGBH producers expect to discuss these kids abstractly, that their hopes, desires, wants and dreams were not every bit as fanciful as theirs had been, years ago?

“As we see what this technology can do, we…can’t kill the instinct [it] produces, we can only criminalize it. We can’t stop our kids from using it, we can only drive it underground. We can’t make our kids passive again, we can only make them ‘pirates.’ And is that good?… In a democracy, we ought to be able to do better.”

—Lawrence Lessig, TED 2007.

Originally written for and published in The Daily Barometer.

Correction: the percent of public school teachers planning to retire between 2005 and 2010 now correctly reads 22 percent. The source for this figure had previously reported an incorrect number.