Thoughts on Frontline: Growing up online

In my opinion, the documentary Growing up Online focuses way too much about potential dangers of social networking. Overall it feels like this film was made in order to scare parents into micromanaging their children's activities on the web. The documentary does not give the teenagers enough credit when it comes to knowing the internet and what potential harm they could come in contact with. For example, the film spends the vast majority of the time telling horror stories about cyber bullying, predators and potential suicide and only glosses over the fact that most kids know how to deal with thing such as predators and don't usually fall victim to that unless it is solicited. I would have liked it if it talked more about the benefits that the internet has given many people, whether it be more access to information, a sense of belonging to a larger community, etc. However when it comes to the potential dangers of the internet it really touched some very important topics in great detail. The part I would've liked them to elaborate on was the potential of kids meeting people on the internet who influence them to do damaging things to themselves like suicide, eating disorders, etc rather than sex predators. To me this influence from peers to do harmful things via the internet is a much bigger issue than that of predators because a lot of kids can easily block someone who is harassing them. However if they are seeking approval of the wrong crowd that can end up being way more damaging to them in the long run.