in anticipation: frontline's "Growing Up Online"

tomorrow night, tuesday, 1.22.2008, the pbs program frontline will debut it's newest documentary focused on youth: "Growing Up Online." based on the description on the website, the program promises to raise and address a range of interesting questions and issues currently circulating about the ways that youth are living their lives with/in the internet. i'm particularly interested to see how they explore and portray youth who have never known life without the existence of the internet.

the new york times featured a story about the doc and its contents: The Rough-and-Tumble Online Universe Traversed by Young Cybernauts
the piece concludes ion this way:

By the end of “Online,” Greg Bukata, for one, has quit the Internet, if only temporarily. He is seen graduating from Chatham High School, with plans to attend the United States Coast Guard Academy, where Internet use is prohibited for several weeks.

“It’ll be hard, but I need to disconnect,” he says. “I need to just pull the plug on this Internet life for a little bit and see what it’s like.”

i preemptively worry that stories of the "dangers" of the internet and a protectionist narrative will dominate "Online", despite the claim that the program will investigate "the risks, realities and misconceptions of teenage self-expression on the World Wide Web." either way, i'll be watching - available on tv and online.

watch a preview: