Posted by Dan Cummings - I had the rare opportunity this week to make a brief appearance on national television...talking with Fox News' Bill O'Reilly about the nude picture scandal at Cicero-North Syracuse High School. O'Reilly wondered aloud why there hadn't been more outrage in the Central New York region about these young girls sending naked pictures of themselves to boyfriends...and then seeing those images distributed, first on a disc at the junior high school...then on the internet.
I think it's notable that the host and producers of this talk show found value in opening up a national dialogue on the same topic that I'd already been blogging about for the past two weeks: the negative impact of cyber communications technology on our young people...especially when it comes to their interpersonal relationships.
For me, the most troubling backdrop of the story remains what the resource officer at C-NS told us last week: that some schoolkids today, equipped with text-messaging-picture-taking cell phones, and instant messaging and regular e-mail on their computers...find it far too convenient to communicate through the veil of cyberspace...often "saying" things to, or about, others...that they would never dream of saying face-to-face.
Worse yet, face-to-face communication simply disappears.
If you'd like, let's keep THIS cyber-dialogue going locally.