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The New York Times
====The Documentary Growing Up Online shows the good or bad sides of kids spending a lot of time on the Internet. The documentary tells the stories of real kids experiences online. The Internet does not endanger most children. Kids can find information and be creative online. They can socialize and meet friends. Then again kids with eating disorders find tips about how to suppress hunger. Kids become addicted to the Internet. The Internet can easily be plagiarized through copy and paste. Instead of reading books, students read Internet summaries. There are the obvious dangers of cyber bullies, and stalkers. I do not think that most children who use the Internet have these problems. Though these problems may be serious in some parts of the country, I don’t know anyone who has any of these problems. (FG)====

By Norimtsu Onishi Source: NY Times Summary submitted by Missy A. //Thumbs Race as Japan’s Best Sellers Go Cellular//, by Normitsu Onishi, an article written on January 20, 2008, is about women in Tokyo writing novels through their cell phones. These women on their way to work or when they have spare time, sit and type out novels in their phone and post them on a web page where people can read the latest addition to the story. One woman, Rin, age 21 wrote a novel on her self phone like a lot of women in Tokyo, but Rin had more success. Her novel was then printed into a book and sold over 400,000 copies. Just a couple years ago a big boom hit of novels being produced through their cell phones. This is because cell phone companies have made phones with larger keyboards and with monthly fees allowing unlimited text messaging. The novels written through the cell phones of many women are written with not a lot of detail and with fragments of text as their paragraphs. Most cell phone novelists don’t make any money, unless the novel is published as a “traditional book”. This new form of writing through a cell phone at first was taken as a joke by many critics, but was later taken into consideration as the new form of literature for the younger generations. Overall, very cell phone novelist is just longing for the day that their form of writing is considered a genre. After I read this article, I thought the concept of writing novels on your cell phone was kind of cool, but I know I wouldn’t want to read a novel that had been written on a phone. I like to read into depth and get really into the novel and for there to be a mystery, with these novels you don’t get that, its all short and to the point. Some people may enjoy reading these novels when they are on the go, but I am not a huge fan of the whole concept.
 * Cell Phone Novels**

MySpace Agrees to Lead Fight to Stop Sex Predators By Anne Barnard Internet websites that allow you to make a profile page and list personal information have become a risk for children. The website Myspace, has decided to take new precautions in the safety of website users. One of the ways that they are making it safer is creating a larger difference between adult, and children pages. One of the biggest issues is children becoming friends with adults on Myspace that they do not know. One way that Myspace can help prevent this is when an adult wants to friend a child; they will need to answer one or more questions proving that they know the child. The website will automatically make anyone under the age of 18’s profile private. This will prevent any causal browsers from viewing them. Facebook as well as Myspace has agreed to take more hasty actions when they get reports of inappropriate content, of any kind of complaint due to sexual or threatening messages. They are creating ways that will completely prevent children from creating online profiles. If a parent does not want their child to have a Myspace they can send in their child’s email address, and the website will not allow anyone to make a profile under that email address. This can help prevent child from creating profiles, but it is not foolproof because it is easy for them to simply create a new email address to make their Myspace under. Although having someone be required to give information about a child to friend them on Myspace makes sense, in order for Myspace to be able to confirm the information, the person who is being friended, will have to give personal information to Myspace which I do not feel makes sense if the whole point of this precaution is to keep personal information to ones self. -ZG

The New York Times November 18 2007 In Korea, a Boot Camp Cure for Web Obsession

Korea has been a largely wired nation within the past few years, wired meaning connected to the Internet. This has been great towards the countries technological and economical advances, but it has created a major problem. Many children have got addicted to the web. The majority of children have this problem don’t get addicted to going on the internet and going to websites, they get addicted to massive online games with millions of players playing together at once. The problem is that all these kids do is play these games for hours on end, and do nothing else, and in some serious cases kids have played this games for so long without stopping that they have dropped dead of exhaustion. Because of this major problem, a kind of boot camp/ rehab center for these addicted kids has been formed in Mokcheon, South Korea. The center features military style activities to break the addiction and to show the kids that physical activates can be just as good as a video game. In one serve case one 15-year-old boy Lee Chang-hoon spent up to 17 hours a day online playing games. The child skipped school to get sleep and just stopped going to school all together. This issue is important Internet addiction has been issued as a serious medical/ mental health issue. This is very important because it is taking over some of the lives of Koreas finest and brightest youth.---RC

Title: Laptop With A Mission Widens It’s Audience Author: David Pogue Date: October 4, 2007 Source: New York Times Summary by Chanda C.

This is an informative article on the efforts being made around the world to ensure each and every child has access to laptops, and some span of technology. This laptop is called the OX laptop and runs on a Linux operating system. The laptop has very useful features such as being waterproof, scratch proof, and drop proof leaving it very efficient. The OX is being distributed currently to many third world countries everywhere. The way the program works is that a sponsors pays about $200 and a laptop is shipped off somewhere around the world to a child in need. Although, the OX does not include many of the programs of which a Macintosh or Windows computer has, it is still very useful and enables children to work with computers and do things for school. If it were not for this new and creative laptop many children in need would not have the opportunity to be involved with this type of technology. Overall, I think this is an excellent device, which is being used for a really great cause.

Is Obama a Mac and Clinton a PC? By Noam Cohen February 6, 2008 Lily Bartle

The article talks about the different styles of the democratic candidates, it relates these differences to those between Macs and PCs. The Mac is the computer is clean and stylish; it is target both young and old while maintaining a more youthful upbeat appearance. The article associates Obama with the Mac. Obama represents change and new ideas which are qualities that Macs definitely possess. Clinton is he PCs, though reliable PCs most often appear outdated and boring. The article also compares the two candidates websites. Obama’s website is smooth, simple, and modern. The website has a color scheme of soft blues which adds to the calmness of site. Hilary’s site on the other hand has a scheme of dark blues and sharp reds, the website has a hectic appearance more defined lines. I think this article is interesting because of how much the candidate’s website reflects their personality and attitude, I guess it really show how much technology is becoming a daily part of our lives.

Title: MySpace Agrees to Lead Fight to Stop Sex Predators Author: Anne Barnard Source: New York Times Submitted by Munirah Braithwaite

The article I chose to read is called, “MySpace Agrees to Lead Fight to Stop Sex Predators” by Anne Barnard. It is about the measure that networks like MySpace and even Facebook are taking in order to keep children safe from the danger of the Internet. They are attempting to have a setup that will verify age and identity so that sexual advances toward younger people and also exposing them to adult content. One idea was to try and separate the profiles of children from the adults’ profiles. What they would do is have a strict way of verifying the ages of MySpace and Facebook users. Facebook also will attempt to respond faster when users notify them about messages relating to sex and remind people of the type of crowd on the site and to mind their language. Other ideas are for adults to verify that they know the child that are trying to friend on a site, which is safeguard. Parent can also request to MySpace that they do not want their children on MySpace by submitting the child’s e-mail address. However though all of these measures are being taken there is still discomfort about the safety of the Internet. I also agree that it will not be as easy as they think to just fix the sex predator problem. The ideas that they have come up with have been pretty good in my opinion. Some of them will probably be more effective than what there is now.

Title: On Demand, on Time and for a Fee, an Army of Tutors Appears

Date: January 31, 2008 By: Michelle Slatalla Source: New York Times Summarized by: Danielle Regis Summary:

This article is about how instead of the classic tutor that you meet with, they have online tutoring services. The article talks about the author creating an account on the site www.Tutor.com and conducting a study on how people actually like it. The way that she did this was by letting her children use the site for academic help, and checking up on them every so often on how they liked it. The only problem is that it is not cheap for these services. The prices run from $29.99 for 50 minutes to $229.99 for 500 minutes. But the thing is that they do not spend this, much time on the site at once. What usually happens is that they spend a few minutes on the site here and there. During her own personal studies she found out that on the website it is very useful, because her children were able to meet with real tutors over the computer. One of her children absolutely loved it for the help that it gave her but at some points the tutors led her in the wrong direction. When the tutors did this she would rate the session as ‘poor’ and credit was put on the account for the time that was unhelpful. If found this article as very helpful because I never even knew that sites like this ever existed. This is a very interesting topic and I might actually look into this option further.

Title- In Korea, a Boot Camp Cure for Web Obsession Date- January 31st, 2008 By- Martin Fackler Source- New York Times Summarized By – Julie-Rose Gould Summary The article, In Korea, a Boot Camp Cure for Web Obsession, by Martin Fackler is a very interesting article. This article was mainly about teenagers and children who have become addicted to the internet, and now to get help, are going to a boot camp like rehab center to change this addiction. South Korea is mainly known because of their advances in technology and their high-speed Internet service. But this caused a major problem, because about 30% of South Koreans under the age of 18, or approximately 2.4 million people, are considered to have an Internet addiction. People are considered to have an internet addiction if they cant help themselves from using a computer, missing school or work to stay online, or going days without eating because of playing virtual games online. Studies show that most of those with the Internet addictions are male. But over 140 Internet addiction counseling centers, along with hospitals with over 100 treatment centers, are being opened to try to desperately help those in need of it. One person, who knows this from experience, is 15-year-old Lee Chang-hoon, who became addicted to the Internet because of his parents leaving him home alone while they went to work. After being enrolled in the program, he was able to gain self-control, even though he still used the Internet, but learned self-moderation. I have heard of drug rehabilitation centers, and alcohol rehabilitation centers, but not of an Internet addiction rehabilitation center. Who knew that this problem existed? Sometimes I can spend two hours on the Internet, but not seventeen hours. That’s a shame.

Title- In Korea, a Boot Camp Cure for Web Obsession Date- January 31st, 2008 By- Martin Fackler Source- New York Times Summarized by Andrea Gil This article deals with how children in Korea are becoming addicted to the internet and have sent to boot camps for help to this addiction. Many that go to this boot camp face severe problems from the internet and face problems such as mental problems the disability of being able to communicate with people and many more. The problem with this occurred because the internet in Korea is the fastest speed in the world and because of this many of the children chat, play games and do more things because it goes so fast. One example of the internet affect is one child died from the internet so long at one point on the internet. I feel that there is a problem with this and I feel that having a boot camp is a little dramatic, however, the internet does have a large affect on the children so the only way to pull them of the computer screen is to take drastic steps. Many of the children here in the U.S also have problems on the internet so I feel that there should be a boot camp here for a children and once the internet here advances as their is then we are as well going to have to have boot camps.

History Teacher Becomes Podcast Celebrity By: Samuel G. Freedman, January 31, 2007 Source: New York Times Submitted by Anna Saltman

Lars Brownsworth can be mistaken as an average college professor, but he is more than that. He is a star in podcast worlds. This article focuses on how an ordinary teacher turned tedious lectures on ancient times into a spirited podcast sold on itunes. Soon after creating his first podcast, “12 Byzantine Rulers”, Brownsworth’s brother posted the podcast on his webpage as an experiment. Surprisingly, the podcast became extremely popular and moved to itunes. There, it became one of the top 50 podcasts in the world. After about 1,392 people bought his lecture off itunes, his brother persuaded him to write another lecture. By July of 2006, Lars’s lecture had 41,031 hits. Soon enough, the podcast was found by Wired magazine and Apple to be ranked “one of the nation’s most influential podcasts”, drawing 140,910 hits. Lars Brownsworth has become one of the most successful podcast makers. I feel that by creating podcasts out of lectures is a great idea. It helps student who need slower paces and who just want to hear the lecture again. I think Lars Brownsworth is a very intelligent man.

In Korea, a Boot Camp for Web Obsession By Martin Fackler November 8, 2007, New York Times

This article discusses a unique problem in South Korea, which is Internet addiction, and how the country is combating it by setting up a camp to encourage youths to stay off the computer and get outside. One of the reasons Internet addiction is a big problem in South Korea is that the country has cheap, very high- speed Internet which 90% of the country connects to, so people have very fast access. The downside to this is that many kids spend all night on the computer, sometimes even skipping school just to stay connected. In fact, in August of 2005, a man died from playing a game called Starcraft for 50 hours straight, so deaths have even occurred from this addiction. In the US as well, Dr. Jerald Block estimates that 9 million Americans have a risk of “pathological computer use”. The article looks at the case of 15 year old Lee Chang-hoon, who used to spend 17 hours online, looking at manga and playing combat RPGs before going to the Jump Up Internet Rescue School, the camp created for combating Internet addiction. The camp is combating Internet addiction by preventing campers from using the computer, and monitoring their every move if they try to sneak off to access the web. It also has a schedule of physical exercise and group activities, designed to build closer connections to the outdoors rather than the web. Fortunately, it may be paying off as Lee said after leaping to a trapeze “That was better than games!” In my opinion, I think this is a good idea for South Korea to do this camp, but I’m not sure if the US should emulate this. I don’t think too many teens are online 12 hrs a day here, but unfortunately, Facebook and MMORPGs like WOW could soon change that fact.- EM