As Wired.com points out (Report: Teens Using Digital Drugs to Get High), there is a new hysteria about a craze called “i-dosing.” As the story goes, teens are encouraged to put on headphones and to listen to ambient tracks on the Internet that induce feelings of pleasure and ecstasy. God help them! As the Wired article points out, the phenomena is getting the attention of some concerned folks who worry that this is simply a gateway to some other drug, like marijuana or LSD. Never mind that this is much safer than a much more pressing addiction: our insatiable appetite for war and petroleum.

Indeed, their fears are likely confirmed by the graphic on the signature i-dose track (posted above), “Gates of Hades” (you have to let it run a little to see it). If anything I find the electronic pulse on this track annoying. I much prefer a Tibetan bowl, Balinese gongs, chanting ohm or my favorite: a live Sonic Youth feedback jam. But hey, who can fault teens for wanting to transcend the hellish nightmare we call school and American consumerism.

The fear of teens evading the control of the capitalist/Church mind trap is normal in America. During a time when corporations have hijacked democracy and are poisoning the planet, there’s never a better moment to whip up hysteria about how race music/rock/rave/Internet are abducting our children.

Incidentally, the article’s comments are hilarious. My favorite comment comes from Zombowski, who put it this way: “I can’t figure out how to get the music into the needle. Do I shoot it up with an old record player?”

Inauguration is a ‘generational touchstone’:

(01-19) 17:18 PST — America’s twentysomething Millennials have driven, hitchhiked, walked, biked and bused their way to Washington in hordes this week to witness the must-see, must-be-there event of their lives – the swearing-in of Barack Obama.

Many of their Baby Boomer parents can relate: They remember this thing called Woodstock.

A rock concert on a farm in upstate New York – where Jimi Hendrix’s guitar wailed the “The Star-Spangled Banner” during three days of rock ‘n’ roll, sex and drugs – doesn’t approach the weight of the inauguration of the first African American president.

But there are surprising similarities, experts say. Just as Woodstock was for their parents, Obama’s moment assuming the presidency represents a generational touchstone event – one that will define Millennials’ lives, their age and their experience and become the event they will tell their kids and grandkids about.

And if history is a guide, a lot of folks who aren’t there today will claim they were. Woodstock attracted a relatively small 400,000, and somehow it seems millions remember being on hand.

I can’t deny this video makes me feel proud and happy for our youth. I wish my generation (Gen x) was as optimistic. This group certainly contributed to Obama’s success. I hope they will continue to apply pressure for true change. I’ll be watching their back.

For about the site and book, go to Gen We and download the book for free.

Speaking of Grand Theft Auto, a media educator shares an interesting story about transgressing boundaries of the so-called virtual world.

Global Kids’ Digital Media Initiative:

He had, however, developed an unusual method for being a cabbie. Rather than slowing down before picking up a fare, he would often run a person over, wait for him or her to get back up (as if nothing had happened) and climb into his cab, then drive away. I could just imagine how this might appear in a newspaper: “Teen Learns Violent Acts Have No Repercussions.”

“Would you ever get in a taxi that ran you over?” I asked. Without breaking contact with the game the boy responded, “The A.I. is dumb,” referring to the code controlling the behavior of his passengers.

I love this anecdote from Global Kids‘ Barry Joseph because it illustrates how kids have a way of navigating the perimeters of media to mod them beyond the limits of their intended uses. Here Joseph talks about a kid who found his own path in Grand Theft Auto (Remember folks, it’s only a game. Really). I also appreciate how Barry made a point of talking with the kid before judging his behavior. Disclaimer: Barry and I are both authors in the MacArther Foundation’s book series on digital learning in the 21st Century.

A blast from the past (what’ya think of the punk/cholo crossover fashion?)

AlterNet: Health and Wellness: How Teenage Rebellion Has Become a Mental Illness:

Disruptive young people who are medicated with Ritalin, Adderall and other amphetamines routinely report that these drugs make them “care less” about their boredom, resentments and other negative emotions, thus making them more compliant and manageable. And so-called atypical antipsychotics such as Risperdal and Zyprexa — powerful tranquilizing drugs — are increasingly prescribed to disruptive young Americans, even though in most cases they are not displaying any psychotic symptoms.

Back in the day (early ’80s) I remember that a lot of punks were treated by the society as if they were insane. Now, if the above article is correct, the problem of medicating rebellious youth for “oppositional defiant disorder” is epedimic. Damn, if punk were new today we’d be drugged and labeled as terrorists. Makes one nostalgic for the Reagan years.

The song by Suicidal Tendencies, “Institutionalized,” captures the problem perfectly:

Sometimes I try to do things and it just doesn’t turn out the way I wanted to. I get real frustrated and I try hard to do it and I take my time and it just doesn’t work out the way I wanted to. It seems like I concentrate on it real hard but it just never work out. Everything I do and everything I try never turns out. It’s like I need time to figure these things out. But there’s always someone there going. Hey Mike: You know we’ve been noticing you’ve been having a lot of problems lately. You know, maybe you should get away and like, maybe you should talk about it, maybe you’ll feel a lot better. And I go: No it’s okay, you know I’ll figure it out, just leave me alone I’ll figure it out. You know I’ll just work it all by myself. And they go: Well you know if you want to talk about it I’ll be here you know and you’ll probably feel a lot better if you talk about it. Why don’t you talk about it? And I go: No I don’t want to I’m okay, I’ll figure it out myself and they just keep bugging me and they just keep bugging me and it builds up inside and it builds up inside.
So you’re gonna be institutionalized. You’ll come out brainwashed with bloodshot eyes.
You won’t have any say. They’ll brainwash you until you see their way.

I’m not crazy – institutionalized
You’re the one who’s crazy – institutionalized
You’re driving me crazy – institutionalized
They stuck me in an institution, said it was the only solution
To give me the needed professional help to protect me from the enemy, myself

Click here to read the rest.


Incidentally, if this is any measure of the cultural Zeitgeist, apparently “Institutinalized” is featured in the video game, Guitar Hero 2. Here’s a clip that some gamer posted. Man, life is weird!

Technorati Tags: Guitar Hero 2, institutionalized, oppositional defiant disorder, Suicidal Tendencies

You can watch it for free on Frontline’s Website here.

Technorati Tags: frontline

AlterNet: MediaCulture: So You Think You Can Raise a Brand-Free Kid?:

“I think we’re seen as consumers…how much wallet share do kids have, and how much can they influence our spending.”

Yet the push to buy doesn’t jive with the values these parents want to instill in their own kids — values like critical thinking, individuality and sustainable living.

I’m sorry but the prevailing wisdom that branding destroys kid’s minds is wrong. Bad parenting destroys, or at least hinders, childhood development. Stop blaming corporations. Branding does not prevent critical thinking, only censoring the dominant reality does. This doesn’t mean that I agree with branding to kids, but it’s the parents that need education. Talk to your kids about media– they are intelligent. But don’t block reality from them, it will only make it more attractive.

PS: I posted the above comment at Alternet where the article in question was posted, and I notice that the readers over their don’t like what I have to say (my comment is rating at 2 on a scale of 1 to 5). It occurs to me that on the surface that I may come across like a pro-media capitalist, but nothing would be further from the truth. I just no longer agree with all the fear mongering concerning media. Part of that requires a long back story and my book (out next April!) that explains more clearly why I came to this point. Regular readers of my blog will pick up on the reasons here and there.

I think the problem in general with media activism is that it adheres to a one to many mass media model of communication without acknowledging that we are in a transition to a many to many communication environment. The assumption– especially coming from the Adbuster folks– is that they believe we are injected with all this evil ideology– when the situation is far more complex. We exist in a mental ecosystem that is also composed of countervailing influences. The reason I was able to become my own person despite the total mediation of my youth was that I had parents interested in art and education, I was a punk rocker which required using media as our art, and other intangibles I can’t explain. The point is that I had a strong immune system that made the messages I was exposed to less “sticky.”

I realize the word “media educator” could sound nefarious. After all, isn’t advertising “media education” on how to be good consumers? Media educators teach media literacy, but I hate that term, because it implies that if we learned to understand media like books we would be smarter and better, and this is not true. I agree with Marshal McLuhan that current media is just an extension of the thought forms that were codified by the alphabet and printing press. So if people want to get pissed about the current state of media, consider how books have destroyed our communal way of thinking (because books make us silent, isolated experiencers of knowledge). I’m not anti-book, but all this media bashing is also not addressing the problem.

Having grown up around a lot of kids who survived hippie communes, I can say this with great confidence. Many of those kids denied McDonalds, sugar, and TV just indugled in it in more extremes until it got out of their systems. Then they became stock brokers and real estate agents. No joke. Anyhow, my message is to stop being scared of media and believe more strongly in your capacity to withstand brainwashing. Call me an optimist, but i believe in the innate intelligence of human beings to know the difference between bullshit and what is good for them, even if it’s delayed sometimes due to poor environmental conditions (i.e. closed communities, poor education, bad diet, etc).