Social networking websites pose a serious threat as they blur the lines between gossip and fact before schoolchildren learn to appreciate the difference, it was claimed. John Newton, head of fee-paying Taunton School, Somerset, said that on-line chat rooms and information sharing sites could help young people learn from peers around the world. But he said pupils needed firm guidance from adults with “authority, balance and a firm grasp of facts and context” to avoid being led astray. “A little knowledge is dangerous thing,” he said. “By unleashing a monster which encourages young people to learn from each other armed by their inevitably limited perspective, while not engendering in them a discernment for the true and the noble, we will raise a generation who do not love learning but simply see the screen as a source of opinion or nuggets of information, poorly digested, that will suit their point of view without testing their veracity.” The comments – in an article today published on Telegraph.co.uk – follow concerns over the effect of social networking websites on children. More than 500m people currently use Facebook to keep in touch with friends, share photographs and videos and post regular updates of their movements and thoughts. A further 145m have signed up to Twitter, the “micro-blogging” service that lets users circulate text messages about themselves. But Baroness Greenfield, the Oxford University neuroscientist and former director of the Royal Institution, said last year that such websites shortened children’s attention spans, encouraged instant gratification and made young people more self-centred. Writing today, Dr Newton, said social networking sites were a “far more powerful weapon in the hands of our children than we appreciate”. “Facebook is a case in point,” he said. “Is it a meaningful social hive generating goodwill and reuniting old friends, or is it a gossips’ paradise infesting the world with innuendo, half truth and insult?” He said children had to be taught that flippant comments posted on-line can leave people’s “reputations in tatters”. “The impossibility of erasing what is posted, revealed and pronounced is a nightmare that our young people are only now experiencing,” he said. “Job prospects as well as personal happiness will be hampered by inadvertent statements – by themselves or others – and the marketplace in which juicy news is exchanged for the hard currency of street cred or the thrill of foolhardy fame will have done its worst.” Dr Newton, head of Taunton School for five years, said he “saw the point” of sharing information on-line, but added: “Call me old fashioned but children need to learn from those with authority, balance and a firm grasp of facts and context.” He said: "Children believe that the imprimatur of the internet gives a statement an authority and a value that are unquestioned. They have not necessarily understood what constitutes gossip, nor appreciate the exocet quality of a hurtful word; half-formed opinion is all that counts."
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The Raelian Movement
for those who are not afraid of the future : http://www.rael.org
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Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8067093/Facebook-encourages-to-children-to-spread-gossip-and-insults.html
Facebook 'encourages to children to spread gossip and insults'
Facebook, Twitter and Bebo are undermining children’s moral development by rewarding the use of “inneuendo, half-truth and insult”, according to a leading headmaster.
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WARNING FROM RAEL: For those who don't use their intelligence at its full capacity, the label "selected by RAEL" on some articles does not mean that I agree with their content or support it. "Selected by RAEL" means that I believe it is important for the people of this planet to know about what people think or do, even when what they think or do is completely stupid and against our philosophy. When I selected articles in the past about stupid Christian fundamentalists in America praying for rain, I am sure no Rael-Science reader was stupid enough to believe that I was supporting praying to change the weather. So, when I select articles which are in favor of drugs, anti-semitic, anti-Jewish, racist, revisionist, or inciting hatred against any group or religion, or any other stupid article, it does not mean that I support them. It just means that it is important for all human beings to know about them. Common sense, which is usually very good among our readers, is good enough to understand that. When, like in the recent articles on drug decriminalization, it is necessary to make it clearer, I add a comment, which in this case was very clear: I support decriminalizing all drugs, as it is stupid to throw depressed and sad people (as only depressed and sad people use drugs) in prison and ruin their life with a criminal record. That does not mean that there is any change to the Message which says clearly that we must not use any drug except for medical purposes. The same applies to the freedom of expression which must be absolute. That does not mean again of course that I agree with anti-Jews, antisemites, racists of any kind or anti-Raelians. But by knowing your enemies or the enemies of your values, you are better equipped to fight them. With love and respect of course, and with the wonderful sentence of the French philosopher Voltaire in mind: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it".
"Ethics" is simply a last-gasp attempt by deist conservatives and
orthodox dogmatics to keep humanity in ignorance and obscurantism,
through the well tried fermentation of fear, the fear of science and
new technologies.
There is nothing glorious about what our ancestors call history,
it is simply a succession of mistakes, intolerances and violations.
On the contrary, let us embrace Science and the new technologies
unfettered, for it is these which will liberate mankind from the
myth of god, and free us from our age old fears, from disease,
death and the sweat of labour.
Rael
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