I have been banging on about the desperate need for education system to teach visual literacy for decades. Berger’s ‘Ways of Seeing’ should be one of the basics for every teen in the social media age. I was a young teen when I first read Postman and Weingartner’s classic work on the faultlines of our narrowminded class bound mass education. Whilst, at the same time I was being openly sexually groomed by a British VIP for later violent abuse at the same time. It was central London in the 1970s after all. Our particular class (one I have long since been kicked out of it for not being able to stay silent about unaddressed embedded social misogynist judicial injustices) all knew to never, ever go to the Met. Not unless you wanted to be subjected to more of the same. Sarah Everard would not have been that Parliamentary policeman’s first victim. The only thing that has changed in regard to the dangers facing all children in Britain today is the number of portals predators can access them through. As long as our politicians, law enforcement agencies and judicial systems lag so far behind in uncovering and prosecuting VIP and institutional mass child sexual abuse, preventing children access from learning how to recognise and negotiate the sex grooming visual propaganda deployed by these criminal global (& VIP) cartels of men and women online is equivalent to blindsiding lambs before their inevitable slaughter. Starmer is deeply naïve.
I do think that a blanket ban is an unserious solution to a serious problem. It looks as if Starmer is Being Bold and Doing Something. We all know how creative and imaginative teenagers are - even those of us who grew up without the internet got creative about getting into pubs and clubs and seeing X-rated films. In an article by someone else that I read earlier today said that the vulnerable young people that this ban is supposed to protect won’t be. They won’t have parents who will monitor phone usage, or friends to talk to. There are no safe shared spaces for young people, like parks, youth clubs and access to play and sports facilities. Yes, social media can be harmful, but it can also be an amazing place to “meet” like minded people. And it can be educational, as you point out about You Tube.
I think you are absolutely correct, Mic. What we need is more education and encouragement of critical thinking - a dangerous notion, I know - rather than putting a big red sign over it saying “do not use”, because human nature is such that whatever is banned immediately becomes more sought after. “Relax” by Frankie Goes To Hollywood would probably have not done nearly so well if the BBC hadn’t banned it.
Mic, this is an interesting idea. Perhaps some kind of media literacy could form part of the PHSCE syllabus?
It absolutely should.
I have been banging on about the desperate need for education system to teach visual literacy for decades. Berger’s ‘Ways of Seeing’ should be one of the basics for every teen in the social media age. I was a young teen when I first read Postman and Weingartner’s classic work on the faultlines of our narrowminded class bound mass education. Whilst, at the same time I was being openly sexually groomed by a British VIP for later violent abuse at the same time. It was central London in the 1970s after all. Our particular class (one I have long since been kicked out of it for not being able to stay silent about unaddressed embedded social misogynist judicial injustices) all knew to never, ever go to the Met. Not unless you wanted to be subjected to more of the same. Sarah Everard would not have been that Parliamentary policeman’s first victim. The only thing that has changed in regard to the dangers facing all children in Britain today is the number of portals predators can access them through. As long as our politicians, law enforcement agencies and judicial systems lag so far behind in uncovering and prosecuting VIP and institutional mass child sexual abuse, preventing children access from learning how to recognise and negotiate the sex grooming visual propaganda deployed by these criminal global (& VIP) cartels of men and women online is equivalent to blindsiding lambs before their inevitable slaughter. Starmer is deeply naïve.
I do think that a blanket ban is an unserious solution to a serious problem. It looks as if Starmer is Being Bold and Doing Something. We all know how creative and imaginative teenagers are - even those of us who grew up without the internet got creative about getting into pubs and clubs and seeing X-rated films. In an article by someone else that I read earlier today said that the vulnerable young people that this ban is supposed to protect won’t be. They won’t have parents who will monitor phone usage, or friends to talk to. There are no safe shared spaces for young people, like parks, youth clubs and access to play and sports facilities. Yes, social media can be harmful, but it can also be an amazing place to “meet” like minded people. And it can be educational, as you point out about You Tube.
I think you are absolutely correct, Mic. What we need is more education and encouragement of critical thinking - a dangerous notion, I know - rather than putting a big red sign over it saying “do not use”, because human nature is such that whatever is banned immediately becomes more sought after. “Relax” by Frankie Goes To Hollywood would probably have not done nearly so well if the BBC hadn’t banned it.
Frankie Says Sod Off Starmer.
That made me laugh 😆
That was what I was going for!