Maximum PC Magazine Needs to Spend a Minute in the Time-Out Chair
The August 2007 issue of Maximum PC magazine contains a well-written letter from a reader expressing his opinion regarding the incompleteness of an article about cracking PC parental control software which ran in the previous issue. The reader wrote that the article failed to provide parents and guardians with the information or means to help make products such as NetNanny [and CyberSitter, etc.] part of a truly effective PC security system for parental control and concomitant child safety online. Sounds good so far, right? It also sounds like an opportunity for Maximum PC staff to delve into a challenging PC security issue, and yet another good reason to provide Maximum PC readers with another one of the excellent in-depth articles for which Maximum PC is known.
The editor who answered the reader letter provided some excellent information in the published response, dealing with multiple levels and approaches to parental control, however briefly, in the limited space available on the INOUT page, but then ended the response as follows:
"If [little] Timmy is really enterprising, you might want to consider random room searches before lockdown, err, bedtime."
Maximum PC, a bastion for all things techno-geeky and computer-ish, implied that parental control over a child's access to the Internet is unreasonable? Wait a moment. Maximum PC writers and editors deserve credit for many expressions in previous issues against anyone or anything that could possible hurt a child online. So the editors were only implying that in this day and age, the diligence that wise parents must apply to a child's Internet access is sadly tantamount to creating a prison? The editors were just commiserating with a parent and kindred spirit searching for online security? Of course they were! Nonetheless, I think the editor's sarcasm can easily be misinterpreted.
Good parenting these days encompasses skills not traditionally taught (or likely even imagined) by Dr. Spock. In fact, the freedom of the Internet, despite our urgent need to defend it at all costs, also burdens us with undercurrents of evil—raw, unadulterated evil—that cannot be laughed off the way we used to often laugh off the neighborhood creep back in the day. Our children can now be contacted by freaks and agents of evil in so many different ways, it's a wonder that our goofy governments haven't outlawed Internet access for minors. Of course the Internet Genie is out of the lamp now, and there's no putting it back.
Some people may say that my opinion expressed here rings an alarm out of all proportion to the sarcastic comment written by Maximum PC. My response will only be that all adults, related or unrelated to any child who is the subject of a discussion about safety online, are wholly responsible for contributing in every way possible to the entertainment, education and safety of that child online. Anything less is unacceptable. Sarcasm, however well meant, is unacceptable. Sometimes, as with email and online forums, a straight answer to a question about a serious issue is the best and only acceptable response. Use sarcasm when dealing with less sensitive issues.
Hmm . . . not much fun there.
We are increasingly being burdened by uncomfortable responsibilities which logically derive from the increasingly complicated social, political and technological world in which we live. But the more we embrace the freedom to do and say exactly what we want and interact across social, cultural and geographic boundaries whenever and with whomever we want, the more we must acknowledge and respond to the fact that our words and attitudes touch others in ways we didn't intend. That is the curse of the technological age because we have to be more careful about what we write than ever before in history. I don't advocate hiding, isolated in a small, dark room for fear of inadvertently offending some stranger. But the reality of a world fraught with danger for some of our children must perforce impose the notion that every column or editorial response in a computer magazine may not be fair game for sarcasm. If the sarcasm is well-meant and commiserative, it should explained that way or set up in that manner.
Maybe I'm too old to be amused by even commiserative sarcasm. Maybe I'm too sensitive about child safety online. Maybe this whole blog entry is a waste of words. Maybe the writers at Maximum PC need to occasionally not be sarcastic. Maybe the writers at Maximum PC who read this blog entry will marvel at my unique failure to understand that, duh, everyone who read the editorial response, like, totally knows that it's, like, a total tragedy that kids online have to be watched so carefully by parents. Or like, dude, maybe this sarcasm is out of place too.
The editor who answered the reader letter provided some excellent information in the published response, dealing with multiple levels and approaches to parental control, however briefly, in the limited space available on the INOUT page, but then ended the response as follows:
"If [little] Timmy is really enterprising, you might want to consider random room searches before lockdown, err, bedtime."
Maximum PC, a bastion for all things techno-geeky and computer-ish, implied that parental control over a child's access to the Internet is unreasonable? Wait a moment. Maximum PC writers and editors deserve credit for many expressions in previous issues against anyone or anything that could possible hurt a child online. So the editors were only implying that in this day and age, the diligence that wise parents must apply to a child's Internet access is sadly tantamount to creating a prison? The editors were just commiserating with a parent and kindred spirit searching for online security? Of course they were! Nonetheless, I think the editor's sarcasm can easily be misinterpreted.
Good parenting these days encompasses skills not traditionally taught (or likely even imagined) by Dr. Spock. In fact, the freedom of the Internet, despite our urgent need to defend it at all costs, also burdens us with undercurrents of evil—raw, unadulterated evil—that cannot be laughed off the way we used to often laugh off the neighborhood creep back in the day. Our children can now be contacted by freaks and agents of evil in so many different ways, it's a wonder that our goofy governments haven't outlawed Internet access for minors. Of course the Internet Genie is out of the lamp now, and there's no putting it back.
Some people may say that my opinion expressed here rings an alarm out of all proportion to the sarcastic comment written by Maximum PC. My response will only be that all adults, related or unrelated to any child who is the subject of a discussion about safety online, are wholly responsible for contributing in every way possible to the entertainment, education and safety of that child online. Anything less is unacceptable. Sarcasm, however well meant, is unacceptable. Sometimes, as with email and online forums, a straight answer to a question about a serious issue is the best and only acceptable response. Use sarcasm when dealing with less sensitive issues.
Hmm . . . not much fun there.
We are increasingly being burdened by uncomfortable responsibilities which logically derive from the increasingly complicated social, political and technological world in which we live. But the more we embrace the freedom to do and say exactly what we want and interact across social, cultural and geographic boundaries whenever and with whomever we want, the more we must acknowledge and respond to the fact that our words and attitudes touch others in ways we didn't intend. That is the curse of the technological age because we have to be more careful about what we write than ever before in history. I don't advocate hiding, isolated in a small, dark room for fear of inadvertently offending some stranger. But the reality of a world fraught with danger for some of our children must perforce impose the notion that every column or editorial response in a computer magazine may not be fair game for sarcasm. If the sarcasm is well-meant and commiserative, it should explained that way or set up in that manner.
Maybe I'm too old to be amused by even commiserative sarcasm. Maybe I'm too sensitive about child safety online. Maybe this whole blog entry is a waste of words. Maybe the writers at Maximum PC need to occasionally not be sarcastic. Maybe the writers at Maximum PC who read this blog entry will marvel at my unique failure to understand that, duh, everyone who read the editorial response, like, totally knows that it's, like, a total tragedy that kids online have to be watched so carefully by parents. Or like, dude, maybe this sarcasm is out of place too.
Labels: child safety, CyberSitter, NetNanny, online security, parental controls
posted by Howard Carson, Managing Editor @ 3:32 PM
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