CBS Early Show

I appeared briefly on The Early Show on CBS speaking about teenagers and LiveJournal. Considering that it was 4:15 AM, I'm pretty happy not to have stumbled on my words. In retrospect, I do wish I had challenged my co-guest about his statement that sometimes "teenagers are dumber than mud." Thankfully, I believe I presented LiveJournal and teens being online as something quite normal and not intrinsically dangerous.

In preparing for the show, I realized that I've been online since I was about thirteen -- around 1990 -- and I turned out just fine. I participated in BBS message boards, chat and early Internet services and there were the usual bad things out there, but I was focussed in researching and talking about my interests. Kids and teenagers need guidance and encouragement and not just a dose of "Vitamin N" (see the clip to understand).

For example, when I was a teenager I was really interested in drawing programs like Fractal Design's Painter and Deluxe Paint and creating pictures pixel by pixel. My dad was aware of this and since he worked at a software company, had someone from work -- a graphic artist -- come to my house and give me lessons. This was a huge part of directing me to graphic design for the web.

Encouraging kids to communicate is a good thing and saying that they can't talk online can seem as arbitrary to them as saying they can't talk to friends on the telephone. It's good to be aware of what your kids are doing, but don't expect a stern "no" without explanations to amount to anything other than making your kids more determined to what they want to do.

For a parent, I'm sure this is obvious advice. And as someone without kids, I'm writing about my own experiences being a teenager rather than parenting one. My hope is that LiveJournal can encourage kids and teens to write, express themselves and make a really difficult life transition period a little easier.