Youth Protection: The world was not "better back then," we just have brighter lights.

This blog was provoked by Clay Shirkey's chapter on Collective Action and Institutional Challenges in his book  Here Comes Everybody and by a remark that was made in a training session I attended earlier this week on Youth Protection. I delve into (really skim) this topic fully understanding the touchiness.

As an employee for a nationally acclaimed youth organization, youth protection is on the top of the list of important subjects for me. Outside of my job, it is still on the top of the list.

As aforementioned, the woman leading one of my training sessions this past week made a remark that I found ignorant, if I'm going to be honest. It went something to the tune of, 'Youth protection is becoming a real big issue these days. Times have changed and people aren't being raised the way they used to, like them good 'ole boys.' She continued on a little longer like so, but you get the point. My jaw dropped, 'How can she or anyone believe that?'

The thing is, most people don't even realize the vast social impact that Web2.0 has made. Back to Shirkey's chapter, he writes on two different cases of sexual abuse between a Catholic priest and (several) youth, pointing out the affect that Web2.0 had on the two cases.

The first (mentioned in the book) occurred in 1992 where "Rev. James R. Porter was accused of sexual abuse of children in three different Boston parishes." The scandal was publicized and brought before a court of law (notably many years after his service as a priest). He served in three parishes where he continually abused youth, wrote a note to the Pope that said 'I'm sorry I've been a bad boy, I don't want to be a priest anymore, let me get married and settle down,' and they let him! The greater issue at hand was the Catholic church's reaction to his deeds, quietly passing him along from parish to parish and quietly dismissing him. Families and youth were hurt, calling out to be heard, trying to make the Catholic system aware, but they did nothing.

The second instance, Shirkey notes, takes place in 2002 where sexual abuse accusations against the Catholic Father John Geoghan are publicized. Voice of the Faithful (VOTF) was formed as an activist group in the basement of a church and grew exponentially. People were pissed, not only because of the obvious situation at hand but because of the Catholic church trying to brush things under the mat again. The Catholic Church kicked the group out of the church basement and forbid VOTF to meet. But this is the neat part, thanks to Web2.0's involvement in the modern affair, they still met and grew even more. Although there were attempts on preventing physical meetings they found alternative locations and chatted with communities online through the tools Web2.0 provided. Geoghan was charged and sentenced (at a much faster rate) and the Church was faced with their issues more so than before.

Obviously, these situations have been abreviated and I'm 100% sure that they aren't 100% correct. Point is,
technology and more specifically Web2.0 provided a means for people to communicate, share and broadcast their ideas and issues with Geoghan's case. The Church could not prevent them from meeting and sharing the story. Bringing it back to what my instructor said in her training session and taking from Shirkey's chapter, problems with youth protection have been happening for years, decades, centuries, hell...forever. It's not a new thing and it's not happening more than usual. Only recently in our history have we been able to create communities so quickly and cheaply to spread these and issues. Now, all it takes is a post, tweet, blog, whatever it may be, to signal aggression and people are at (almost) immediate attention.

I hope to encourage thought and discussion. Who knows, maybe recent generations have been "raised worse" and we're all doomed.

Source:
Shirky, Clay. "Collective Action and Institutional Challenges." Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations. New York: Penguin, 2008. 143-60. Print.

An alternative summer office..

When I think of summer typically three things come to mind: HOT, water, and camps.

This summer, as with most in my future through the duration of my current career, I have the pleasure of experiencing all three. 

Welcome to WBSR!

This is the camp at which I have the pleasure of serving as Camp director for 3 weeks. Hot, rustic (a polite word for it), and internet free! You (and I) might be thinking, 'You're crazy!' And you're probably right. But I'm still pumped and looking forward to making things work.

Today, I had the pleasure of getting the Twitter app for my iphone which I plan on using as my primary source of Web2.0 connection during my stay at camp. I weary as for the productivity that may or may not ensue due to the ease of social distraction cell phones provide. But only time can tell.

Much to my chagrin, the Web 2.0 course requires the use and involvement of current technologies in our studies and "classroom" discussions. These technologies include the obvious (blogging), skype, public journal entries (that are not blogs), twitter, etc. Although this is not new news, I still feel resistance to participating in all of these outlets.

I am fundamentally against entrenching my life in technology and social media. It would be silly to completely reject their validity and role in our society, but social media has stolen much of our ability to communicate face to face without interruptions. Almost every single table that I waited, during my short stint as a waitress, had at least one person on their phone at some point during the meal. When was the last time you had a conversation that lasted longer than 5 minutes without checking your phone? We've lost the ability to deal with the awkward silences. Instead of filling that time with moving conversation people pull their phones out to see what others are doing instead. There's a level of depth that is then lost in conversation when you don't devote your attention to the person/people at hand.

This all goes to prove how powerful Web 2.0 is and how deeply involved it is in the general populace's life.

Thoughts? Am I alone in the fight against getting absorbed into the mass collective that is Web 2.0? We might be calling ourselves the Borg all too soon...

Hello! My name is Cassie and I have the pleasure of starting a blog to guide my academic studies this semester. Web 2.0 is the name of the game and by the end of this course I hope to have a greater understanding of the influence technological tools has on communication, learning and development (at least that's the general idea I gather). Hopefully, you too will join the journey and find the information that I post equally beneficial!

My dog Jonah, or J-Dog for short, was the muse for the title of this blog (although he really has nothing to do with it!). Expect star appearances from Jonah, because who doesn't love a blog with a dog?

Isn't he cute?

Cheers!

Cassie