Article on Virtual Audience
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SVANEK
Jun 15, 2010, 1:55:58 PM6/15/10
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http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/teens-take-high-risks-for-a-virtual-audience/
June 14, 2010, 4:54 pm
Stupid Teenage Tricks, for a Virtual Audience
By TARA PARKER-POPE
Jay P. Morgan/Getty Imges
Jay P. Morgan/Getty ImgesIs the Internet making teenagers do more dumb
things than ever?
Some child specialists worry that it is. Teenagers have always been
prone to taking foolish risks (thanks partly to the brain’s prefrontal
cortex, which governs decision-making and is still developing in
adolescence). But with the rise of sites like YouTube and Facebook,
these experts say, teenagers now face virtual peer pressure to emulate
all kinds of dangerous stunts and dares, and post them online.
There are no data to demonstrate whether Web-inspired recklessness is
really increasing or whether teenagers are taking the same risks as
earlier generations — and just finding it easier to document idiotic
exploits for all to see.
But some doctors say that at the very least, the Internet is causing
adolescents to ratchet up the danger level. A few weeks ago, Dr. E.
Hani Mansour, a burn specialist in Livingston, N.J., treated a
teenager who had been severely burned after lighting fireworks. This
was not your father’s fireworks accident. The boy had filled the
family bathtub with fireworks, covered his body in protective clothing
and set up a video camera to record the event. The resulting
explosion, which the teenager later said he had hoped to post on
YouTube, created a fireball that left the boy with burns on about 14
percent of his body.
“Boys have been trying to be rocket scientists for many years,” said
Dr. Mansour, medical director of the burn center at St. Barnabas
Medical Center. “But now we’re seeing it in a more brazen way. They’re
doing it for the purpose of filming it.”
Indeed, unlike their counterparts from the past, these young burn
victims fully intended to create a flaming spectacle, and often take
basic precautions like covering their skin.
Last winter, a 15-year-old boy was treated at the burn center after
trying to film an attempt to shoot a basket with a flaming basketball.
He wore layers of clothing to protect his skin and doused the ball in
gasoline before lighting it. But when he threw the ball, his clothing
caught fire. The young man is recovering, Dr. Mansour said, but he
will have lasting scars from second- and third-degree burns on his
chest, abdomen and thighs.
A search on YouTube for “flaming basketball” turns up more than 100
videos. In a presentation for the American Burn Association, Dr.
Mansour studied 46 Web videos focused on “fire tricks.” Although a few
involved adults, most participants appeared to be 13 to 20, and a few
looked even younger.
In April, Canadian researchers reported on the growing number of
online videos documenting recreational asphyxiation, commonly called
“the choking game.” The videos showed young people intentionally
choking themselves to create a brief high. Although the game has been
around for decades (there’s even a reference in a British medical
journal from the 1890s), some experts are concerned that the Web is
giving it new popularity.
At the time of the study, the 65 videos had been viewed nearly 174,000
times, according to the report, in the journal Clinical Pediatrics.
The lead author, Dr. Martha Linkletter, a pediatrics resident at IWK
Health Center in Halifax, Nova Scotia., said the Web was giving the
game “a broader audience and informing people how to do these things.”
Some experts say YouTube, MySpace and the like should be used to alert
teenagers to the consequences of risky behavior. Dr. Mansour said his
hospital planned to launch a YouTube video depicting the pain and
scars of burn accidents. Dr. Megan A. Moreno, an adolescent medicine
specialist at the University of Wisconsin, recently conducted a study
in which a MySpace persona called Dr. Meg reached out to teenagers who
used their pages to boast of drinking or sexual exploits. “Are you
sure that’s a good idea?” asked Dr. Meg, who went on to explain why
they might want to remove the information. The note also warned them
about the risks of sexually transmitted diseases.
Teenagers contacted by Dr. Meg were twice as likely to remove
references to sex or substance use during the next three months as
those who weren’t contacted, according to the study, published in The
Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
Beyond the obvious risks of filming dangerous stunts, some doctors are
intrigued by how the Internet may be influencing normal adolescent
development. Dr. Moreno notes that one of the distinguishing
characteristics of early adolescence is the “imaginary audience” — the
self-conscious feeling that everybody is watching you.
“For kids in middle school, a really normal part of that is the
perception that you’re on stage, and that everybody is looking at
you,” says Dr. Moreno. “But for kids today it’s a different world
they’re growing up in. It’s a world where there really is that
audience.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A version of this article appeared in print on June 15, 2010, on page
D5 of the New York edition.
June 14, 2010, 4:54 pm
Stupid Teenage Tricks, for a Virtual Audience
By TARA PARKER-POPE
Jay P. Morgan/Getty Imges
Jay P. Morgan/Getty ImgesIs the Internet making teenagers do more dumb
things than ever?
Some child specialists worry that it is. Teenagers have always been
prone to taking foolish risks (thanks partly to the brain’s prefrontal
cortex, which governs decision-making and is still developing in
adolescence). But with the rise of sites like YouTube and Facebook,
these experts say, teenagers now face virtual peer pressure to emulate
all kinds of dangerous stunts and dares, and post them online.
There are no data to demonstrate whether Web-inspired recklessness is
really increasing or whether teenagers are taking the same risks as
earlier generations — and just finding it easier to document idiotic
exploits for all to see.
But some doctors say that at the very least, the Internet is causing
adolescents to ratchet up the danger level. A few weeks ago, Dr. E.
Hani Mansour, a burn specialist in Livingston, N.J., treated a
teenager who had been severely burned after lighting fireworks. This
was not your father’s fireworks accident. The boy had filled the
family bathtub with fireworks, covered his body in protective clothing
and set up a video camera to record the event. The resulting
explosion, which the teenager later said he had hoped to post on
YouTube, created a fireball that left the boy with burns on about 14
percent of his body.
“Boys have been trying to be rocket scientists for many years,” said
Dr. Mansour, medical director of the burn center at St. Barnabas
Medical Center. “But now we’re seeing it in a more brazen way. They’re
doing it for the purpose of filming it.”
Indeed, unlike their counterparts from the past, these young burn
victims fully intended to create a flaming spectacle, and often take
basic precautions like covering their skin.
Last winter, a 15-year-old boy was treated at the burn center after
trying to film an attempt to shoot a basket with a flaming basketball.
He wore layers of clothing to protect his skin and doused the ball in
gasoline before lighting it. But when he threw the ball, his clothing
caught fire. The young man is recovering, Dr. Mansour said, but he
will have lasting scars from second- and third-degree burns on his
chest, abdomen and thighs.
A search on YouTube for “flaming basketball” turns up more than 100
videos. In a presentation for the American Burn Association, Dr.
Mansour studied 46 Web videos focused on “fire tricks.” Although a few
involved adults, most participants appeared to be 13 to 20, and a few
looked even younger.
In April, Canadian researchers reported on the growing number of
online videos documenting recreational asphyxiation, commonly called
“the choking game.” The videos showed young people intentionally
choking themselves to create a brief high. Although the game has been
around for decades (there’s even a reference in a British medical
journal from the 1890s), some experts are concerned that the Web is
giving it new popularity.
At the time of the study, the 65 videos had been viewed nearly 174,000
times, according to the report, in the journal Clinical Pediatrics.
The lead author, Dr. Martha Linkletter, a pediatrics resident at IWK
Health Center in Halifax, Nova Scotia., said the Web was giving the
game “a broader audience and informing people how to do these things.”
Some experts say YouTube, MySpace and the like should be used to alert
teenagers to the consequences of risky behavior. Dr. Mansour said his
hospital planned to launch a YouTube video depicting the pain and
scars of burn accidents. Dr. Megan A. Moreno, an adolescent medicine
specialist at the University of Wisconsin, recently conducted a study
in which a MySpace persona called Dr. Meg reached out to teenagers who
used their pages to boast of drinking or sexual exploits. “Are you
sure that’s a good idea?” asked Dr. Meg, who went on to explain why
they might want to remove the information. The note also warned them
about the risks of sexually transmitted diseases.
Teenagers contacted by Dr. Meg were twice as likely to remove
references to sex or substance use during the next three months as
those who weren’t contacted, according to the study, published in The
Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
Beyond the obvious risks of filming dangerous stunts, some doctors are
intrigued by how the Internet may be influencing normal adolescent
development. Dr. Moreno notes that one of the distinguishing
characteristics of early adolescence is the “imaginary audience” — the
self-conscious feeling that everybody is watching you.
“For kids in middle school, a really normal part of that is the
perception that you’re on stage, and that everybody is looking at
you,” says Dr. Moreno. “But for kids today it’s a different world
they’re growing up in. It’s a world where there really is that
audience.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A version of this article appeared in print on June 15, 2010, on page
D5 of the New York edition.
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