Net Generation and Degeneration of Online Forums

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Net Generation and Degeneration of Online Forums

2/15/2006

By Terry Calhoun

Now, this presents a real dilemma for the PDGA. We have rules of play that are similar to what we call "ball and stick" golf, and they are quite strict on courteous behavior. On the course, an amazing number of players actually follow those rules. Acting as a marshal, officiating at those events, I make calls about discourteous behavior only occasionally and the players are nearly always contrite and apologetic. Really, without the courtesy rules, the game would become quite uncomfortable to play.

So, the PDGA says to members that it expects the same level of courtesy and demeanor online as it d'es on the course. But a growing number of our members don't get it. So the PDGA DISCussion forum may well end up being closed, because the adult leaders of the organization are worried about the sport's public image, both with potential players and parks owners, as well as with potential sponsors.

As many critics of MySpace and similar venues have pointed out, "sponsors" for the young people who post all sorts of (I think inappropriate) information about themselves and their lives, might some day be potential employers who have searched cyberspace about the job applicant. (The first thing I do when I review a job application is Google the person intensely. In the future, I will also try to find them on MySpace.)

I expect to spend a lot more time, especially after July, reading and exploring young people's networked behavior as I am co-editing a special issue of Innovate (peer-reviewed online journal about online education) that will focus on the 'Net Generation's expectations of and challenges presented to higher education institutions as they move on through our campuses. (The call deadline for manuscripts is July 30.) I'll share tidbits of what I see and learn here.

Meanwhile, as a former anthropologist, I am not at all sure yet that the behaviors we see are all that different from the behaviors (or desires) young human beings have always displayed or secreted. No matter what the history books want us to believe, I am convinced that humans have always been crude, vulgar, and outrageous--or wanted to be. Now we live in a world that includes space for us to act out as we wish.

Is that good or is it bad? Well, I definitely prefer vulgar language and outrageous sexual innuendo to killing people and burning embassies due to cartoons.

Or, for that matter, I prefer it above wealthy people paying large amounts of money to shoot (Excuse me, I meant to say "spray with bird shot.") domestically-raised young birds who are released from a cage only so that they can be followed through terrain they are not familiar with and "hunted."

Neither the burnings nor the fake hunting are, to me, anywhere within the realm of reasonable or sportsmanlike conduct. But, we are humans after all, not more highly evolved than other species but just differently evolved-we manipulate and create environments. And some of those are places where people can act like, well, animals.

About the author: Terry Calhoun is Director of Communications and Publications for the Society for College and University Planning (SCUP). You can contact him through CT's IT Trends forum by clicking here. View more articles by Terry Calhoun.

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Terry Calhoun, "Net Generation and Degeneration of Online Forums," Campus Technology, 2/15/2006, http://www.campustechnology.com/article.aspx?aid=40733

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