The Errant Æsthete

PBS Frontline explores Growing Up Online. Some of what they learned.

“What piqued my interest in this subject was a story a friend told me about her 13-year-old nephew — a spectacularly bright and sensitive boy who is known for his kindness and modesty. Unbeknownst to his parents, he had started a blog, which they only learned about when another parent called to warn them. Evidently, this boy had made an offensive racial comment about another kid in his grade. When my friend and her husband read what he had written, they were shocked. They didn’t recognize their own son, whom they felt they knew well, and could hardly believe he’d written the words they saw on his computer screen.

When they confronted him, the boy was mortified. As they talked about it, it became clear that the supposed anonymity and immediacy of the Internet had led him to say things he never would say in “real” life — and didn’t even mean. It was a game, an exercise, a way of trying on identities.”