Are We Still Watching Cartoons??

Just the other day I was online and found one of my favorite shows as a kid. You may not remember it but it was called "Rugrats". I remember being young and waking up early just to catch the latest episode of "Rugrats". Other popular shows at that time were "Gula Gula Island", a show about a family and their big frog, "Blue's Clues", about a cute blue dog finding clues for the day, and an all time favorite "Recess", a show about a group of friends trying to survive an exciting day at recess. These shows were meant for the eyes of a younger crowd, and depicted pure and harmless fun.

Now, this same day I was flipping through the Disney channel and Nickelodeon and came across some of the popular shows of today such as "Hannah Montana", a show about a young girl that secretly a pop star. "The Fairly Odd Parents", about two fairies granting the wishes of a young boy, and one that really set at me wrong, "Spongebob Squarepants". This show is about a sponge life in the bottom of the sea. The show itself is a great show, but the content that I saw in the show was very disturbing. There were slight signs of nudity, shows about cussing, and also gave mix signals about Spongebob and his best friend Patrick the Starfish, being gay. A lot of parental viewers have now stopped their kids from watching this show because of the messages that it sends to the younger viewers.

It's strange to see how the television industry has changed so much from my generation to the current one. I also find it interesting the amount of bad behavior parents are dealing with right now with their children. Yes, there was bad behavior when I was little, but it seems to me it has just gotten worst. Could this be due to the change of the cartoons that we grew up with?? I suppose it could linked together. What do you think?
Operation: KIDS

Computer Catastrophe

I was thinking about my New Media Technology class, and how we touched on the subject of younger kids having computer's in their room. When I heard this, my initial reaction was, absolutely not! That, to me, is completely unheard of, especially when I was growing up.

Growing up, we had a family computer. This computer was put in the office in our house, and was there for everybody to use. It was put in a general place so that the temptations that younger kids might face were not put to use, because of the easy access into the room. For my sister's and brother's, using a computer was a privilege. There were rules on what time we could use it, and obviously rules on what site we could get on. There wasn't always a parent in the room when we would be on the computer, but my parents definitely instilled that "scare" in us to where we would not dare disobey their rules. On the contrary, it was not unheard of getting a computer put in a child's room. As a matter of fact, my best friend from middle school had a computer and a personal phone line in her room at the age of 12.

I believe that allowing children to have that kind of technology at such a young age causes trouble at a young age. I won't stereotype every child that has had a computer at a young age, but my best friend, at the time, has grown up in trouble. She has been through many things that our campaign, Faith in Our Youth, want to help young troubled youth through. I do not think that having a computer at a young age is appropriate for children simply because they have not matured yet as adults, and therefore will not understand what computers are actually made for. What do you think??
Operation: KIDS

Ok, so I was discussing our campaign, Faith in Our Youth, with some of my friends and a very touchy subject came up by one of the participants in our conversation. The question seemed to bring a very cold silence throughout the conversation, but then came up with many different opinions. This cold question was, do you think that the upbringing of how a parent raised their child is the representation of how the child's life is today.
Yes, I know, deep question. Don't ask me how it came up, but it did. The first answer to this question was yes, and the reason being was that they believed that the way a parent raises their child, from the beginning, shapes the life of their offspring. They used the example of racism. If the child was brought up with a particular thought of a member of a different race, that is how they will see everyone. She brought up a specific example of one of her earlier classmates from high school. She explained that her classmate's dad always made it seem like African Americans were always looking for trouble and they were always up to no good. This made him grow up to believe that most African American people just want to find trouble and, in that, always made sly remarks about a person of that race.
With that opinion, an opposite one was said. They believed that parents do not make the child. They went on by saying the when a child is old enough to understand certain situation, they can make their own sense out of that situation. They used an example of one of their classmate's parents. They said that the parents had sent their child to different christian school's their whole life, that they also went to church every Wednesday and Sunday, and that they had family prayer every night; but their child still grew up to be very disobedient and rebellious.
The situations are very different but also both prove a point. What do you think?
Operation: KIDS

Tough Love

This week has been very adventurous, yet busy. We were able to launch our campaign on Twitter, Facebook, and our personal email account. We have already been very successful in getting members and continue to get more every day.

So, a few things have been on my mind. I've been thinking about what is the main reason why youth these days tend to fall into situations that hurt them. I've been wondering what it is that make youth want to go down this path. My thought is that youth just want to keep up with the media, with their peers, and with the role models. Whether that be a good role model or bad, they just want to fit in with what is in. I believe that there are so many drugs, sex, and body image that are pried into the minds into the youth, it literally drags on their backs because that is all that they think about.

I also believe that television has a big part to do with it. Watching shows like Hannah Montana and then turning around and seeing her grow up so fast confuses the minds of these kids out there. One day you see her singing and living a carefree child protected life, and the next minute you see them with promiscuous music videos. It would be false for young kids to not be confused about what is right and what is wrong. Tell me what you think.

Operation: KIDS

Operation:KIDS

Ok, so this week was pretty crazy, but very productive. We were able to set up our different accounts for Facebook, Twitter, and our personal email address. We also thought of some new ideas that we will eventually try to set up in the future.
One of our ideas that we were thinking of developing in the future is a youth camp. We believe in our camp we will be able to connect emotionally with the with the minds of our youth. My partner and I strive to be role models and a guidance to our youth, and we want them to be able to come to us as if we were their older sisters. We also believe that when we bring many youth together in an environment where they do not stand out, because of the similarity in their life situations with other youth, that they will be able to relate to others and open up. We also would be able to have different activities such as basketball, cheer leading, baseball, art, etc., so that it will attract the eyes of many youth out there, giving them the opportunity to enjoy themselves also.
My partner and I have also thought about going to different organizations to interaction with youth. There are many out there that deal with abused youth, youth that don't have anywhere to go, youth that have been sexually abused, and youth that have dealt with domestic violence. We believe that we will be able to get a lot of experience with dealing with these youth while volunteering at different organizations. We also want to get the footage together so that we can show them to all our followers.
Another one of our ideas that we believe will enhance our campaign is interviewing the parents. My partner and I believe that through the parents we can find out what the main issue youth struggle with. We also believe that we can get our message out to them and allow them to get a greater confidence in us mentoring to their youth. What do you think?
Operation:KIDS

Ok, well my partner and I met up to talk more about our campaign that we were assigned to do for class. We went through a list of things to do that we believe will help us utilize our campaign to its fullest potential.
The first job we intend to do is to put a lot of our campaign into is Facebook. Facebook is something that we believe to be a triple threat towards our campaign. While being able to get our message out to the younger crowd, we can also use it to send to friends on our friend list so that they can send it to their friends and so on. We also realized we can use Facebook to start a discussion with people that have decided to join our group. It is an easy and effective way to get people to put their ideas out there. We also saw that we could upload pictures and video on Facebook, which can allow our viewers to see that we are actually going out there to reach to our youth.
While we were discussing the positive aspects Facebook can do for our campaign, I got to thinking. I started thinking about how technology has really engulfed the minds of the youth, which I think has contributed to the lack of wanting to have a relationship with God. I think that it is so easy for our generation of youth to get information online such as movies, clips, news, and other negative things that allow the younger society to fall into difficult situations. I believe that the new generation technology has brainwashed us as an individual society. Maybe its just me, or maybe I see this more because I found myself getting sucked into the hole. Its something to think about.
Operation:KIDS

So, for my Senior Seminar class called New Communication Technology/ Society, we are assigned this project where we need to develop a campaign over a cause that we strongly believe in. My partner and I had similar ideas so we decided to put them together.
Our campaign is called Faith in Our Youth. The main objective in our campaign is to reach out to the younger community. We want our youth to rely on God in certain situations where they feel that they are spinning out of control, and to also find interest and excitement in their desire to have a better relationship with God. Our generation of youths have been introduced to many different situations in their lives such as: being sexually abused, peer pressure, being sexually involved with others, and domestic violence. Our goal is to let these young youth realize that they should not have to worry about going through these things by themselves, but if they just develop a relationship with God, He makes it so much easier to get through trials they may be confronted with.
My partner and I have made a list of the ways we plan on reaching our goal. We have thought of many different ways to allowing our campaign to get out there and into the eyes of the younger crowd. One way we plan on making our campaign effective is by putting our campaign on Facebook. We believe that this is the best way to reach a younger, and older, crowd. Another method we plan on using is Twitter. We believe that because Twitter has just recently blossomed into a great way of reaching the younger generation, it would be a great asset in our campaign. Another idea that we have come up with is Youtube. A lot of people on campus are familiar with a popular group on Youtube called W0Went. The students of W0Went go to Houston Baptist University, and we think that it was be a great way in bringing our campaign out there. They are know for their skits on Youtube, so we are thinking that if they can help us make a video to put out on Youtube and reach to their crowd, we believe that we will have a better chance of getting people to come to our campaign.
I think that the goals that we have now will be effective in bringing a great turnout to our campaign. Thanks for reading!
Operation:KIDS