My bloggy friends, today I’ve got a new word for you: juvenoia.
OK, you won’t find the term in the dictionary. But it was coined not all that long ago by a sociology professor named David Finkelhor and essentially means: “An exaggerated fear of the detrimental impact of social change on our kids.” When he says “social change” he’s mainly referring to the Internet.
But let’s face it, isn’t that a pretty easy state for parents to slip into?
After all, when we were kids. we didn’t have instant access to all of the Internet’s nasty stuff, and life was still chock full of pitfalls, temptations and stumbling blocks. So the underlying fear that we have today is that the Internet is, what Finkelhor calls, a “risk amplifier.” It’s something that makes kids more vulnerable to predators and bullies, promotes a heightened sexuality and, of course, exposes kids to pornographic content that they otherwise wouldn’t find on their morning breakfast cereal box. In short, we fear it’s a whole lot worse and has a far larger negative impact on children (and everyone else, for that matter) than pretty much anything else in their lives right now. (And since that includes reality TV, well, that’s saying something.)
Now, there’s no question that the Internet has its problems. But in his University of New Hampshire speech, “The Internet, Youth Deviance & the Problem of Juvenoia,” the good doctor pointed out that our kids are doing just fine even with its influence. In fact, he said that in the last 15 years—the very period when the Net has taken off—indicators show that all the real statistical bugaboo areas of worry are on the decline.
> Sexual abuse of minors is down.
> Teen sexual intercourse and pregnancy are down.
> Bullying is down. (I know, that one was a big surprise for me, too.)
> The number of kids reporting being targeted by hate speech is down.
> The teen suicide rate “has dropped dramatically.”
> Teen drug use is down.
So what is driving all our anxiety? Well, for one thing, we adults have the Internet now, too. So we’ve got 24/7 news reports and stats telling us how incredibly bad things are for our lil’ ones. There is a constant blizzard of accounts of school shootings and Facebook bullyings. And Finkelhor says that:
“Virtually every parent from every station in life sees him or herself as raising children in opposition to the common culture. Parents feel undermined by it—pitted, depending on their point of view, against consumerism, secularism, sexual licentiousness, government regulation, violence, junk food, public schools, religious and racial bigotry … this leads to a constant anxiety about external threats.”
That’s where I personally think Mr. Finkelhor nailed it. Sure we worry about kid’s exposure to the garbage of this world just like every other parent has throughout time. But what’s even more worrisome is that the kids are being drawn away from the mores and long-held foundations of our family’s values by this Internet beast that can expose them to so many twisted ideas. In other words, our families are falling apart and something is to blame.
Bruce Feiler, a parent and columnist for The New York Times, however, thinks that family fears and frets in this über-connected age can be overcome in the same way they have for eons. In his article “The Stories That Bind Us” he suggests, “The single most important thing you can do for your family may be the simplest of all: develop a strong family narrative.”
Sure, we want to protect the kids from harm and shield them from the evil that surely is at work at our world. And there’s no backing off from that. But instead of fretting and nibbling our nails to the quick, we can, as the old song goes “Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive.” We can talk about the ups and downs of our families and our family’s family. We can share stories of the times we struggled, the times we prayed our way through, remember the successes of young and old, and say, “that’s the way it works.” Mr. Feiler writes:
Decades of research have shown that most happy families communicate effectively. But talking doesn’t mean simply ‘talking through problems, as important as that is. Talking also means telling a positive story about yourselves. When faced with a challenge, happy families, like happy people, just add a new chapter to their life story that shows them overcoming the hardship. This skill is particularly important for children, whose identity tends to get locked in during adolescence.
The bottom line: if you want a happier family, create, refine and retell the story of your family’s positive moments and your ability to bounce back from the difficult ones. That act alone may increase the odds that your family will thrive for many generations to come.”
That kind of choice doesn’t eliminate the junk on the Internet, of course. But it does reinforce our family positives and support the choices we would make while diminishing those other potentially tempting negatives. Besides, isn’t that the sort of thing we dabble in and enjoy as a natural extension of family gatherings and holiday celebrations anyway?
I tell ya, my juvenoia is ebbing already.
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