(HOST) Commentator Willem Lange has some thoughts about kids today, the power of suggestion and the big bad wolf.
(LANGE) Many years ago, teaching high school English, I used to tell my students, "The English language is like music: The more familiar with it you become, the more you can appreciate it, the better you can think and express yourself, and the more sensitive you’ll be to the attempts of others to manipulate you with it."
During a unit spent studying advertising, I brought a one-ounce medicine bottle to class and set it on my desk. "The school nurse," I said, "is concerned about the air circulation in the classrooms. So I’m going to open this bottle of perfume, and as soon as you can smell it, raise your hand."
One by one the hands went up, spreading toward the back of the room, till everybody was sure he smelled it. "Thank you," I said. "Now, two things. First, this is tap water, not perfume. Second, never believe you can’t be manipulated by the power of suggestion."
It was the perfect moment to introduce Grimm’s fairy tales, with their primal fears and cautionary morals. Why is the Big Bad Wolf so bad? Not only because he’ll eat you, but because he first cons you into thinking he’s a really sweet guy. He fools Red Riding Hood and two of the Three Little Pigs; she’s saved by the intervention of a woodcutter, and the Practical Pig by his caution. Only one of the four sees through the wolf.
Those were the days before the Internet. The appeals of advertisers came to us by what now seem primitive technologies. Many of us now rely almost entirely on e-mail. An elderly clergyman I know resists the cyberage because he believes the Devil is in his computer. He’s right,; but the Devil’s in practically everything. He’s just a lot easier to find when you’ve got high-speed.
Our children now have access to the benefits and perils of instant communication with people all over the world who may – or may not – speak the truth or wish us well. If I had a dollar for every scam that appears on my screen from Nigeria, I could take a week off and fly to Molokai. The Big Bad Wolf is still at large.
Our poor kids! Research shows the prefrontal cortex of the adolescent brain, which controls emotions, restrains impulses, and makes rational decisions, is not yet developed. Our kids spend much more time on the Internet than those of us past the age of easy susceptibility. Protecting them from danger is impossible by surveillance alone; we can’t monitor every minute of our children’s cyberactvity. Facebook and MySpace are burgeoning, and everybody wants to have a thousand certifiable friends.
There’s no one solution. Education is crucial, as much with the Internet as with sexual activity. Monitoring helps. But given the adolescent inability to be consistently rational, a good, healthy dose of raw fear might be a good idea. Because the Big Bad Wolf, our childhood nemesis, will never die.
This is Willem Lange in East Montpelier, and I gotta get back to work.