Teach42

A week or two ago, Alan posted something that really resonated with me about how we tend to focus so much on the stranger-danger side of the internet that you don’t hear about the positive side of networking with ‘strangers’.

There is so much fear flying about internet behavior. Yes, there are real predators, and naive kids you get exploited. It is not chicken feed, not trivial.

On the other hand, I firmly believe that the numbers of times people create meaningful, positive connections via the net far outweighs, by orders of magnitude, the horror stories of net predation that scream from tabloids, TV junk news, and every newspaper. Yet good stories are not news.

Yesterday, Dave Ferguson added a fantastic analogy to the conversation.

the best internet-meeting analogy I’ve heard is that there are X million people online (pick a number that fits your interest, like English speakers or people in France)… and just like a city with X million people, there are places where it’s not too smart to go, and people whom it’s not too smart to choose to meet.

And, like that city of X million, there are all kinds of people you benefit from meeting, and even greater numbers of people who wish you no harm whatsoever.

To sacrifice the opportunities that we have to network and collaborate due to a few people who have bad intentions would just be a shame. There’s so much good stuff out there, so many positive uses, I hate hearing that somebody wants to block things or shut them down because of a few bad apples.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we don’t need to keep our children safe. But I think we ought to be teaching them to be safe, rather then removing them from any questionable situation. One is a life skill, the other is a bubble.