Tech TV
Tweens and teens are increasingly using Internet and cell phone technology to communicate with each other. Gone are the days of pen pals and snail mail; today it's webcams and text messaging. Producers have taken notice of these trends and incorporated these new technologies into two popular television shows.
Nickelodeon's i-Carly
targets tweens through both TV and an interactive website. Tweens can log on to the site, upload their videos or pictures, and see them broadcast on the show. The combination of Internet technology and television is innovative and sure to spawn replicas.
On the CW's adolescent soap opera, Gossip Girl, Manhattan's elite teens receive text updates from "Gossip Girl," an anonymous blogger keeping tabs on the scandals of the rich and misbehaved. The characters also regularly snap incriminating photos and record video on their phones that are quickly distributed amongst the student body. The show features sex, drugs, drinking, and gambling…pretty much everything you hope your child is not doing; but teens love it and the integration of technology with the high school social hierarchy is both perceptive and accurate.
NBC's quarterlife aims at a slightly more mature audience, but it too follows the trend of straddling the line between computer and television technology. The series was first produced for the Internet, but later moved onto television. The show centers around the blogging activities of the main character, as she writes about and outs her friends' secrets.
As technology becomes an ever-increasing factor in your child's life, it will play an even larger role in how they watch television. Our advice? Tune in with your child to get a feel for how your tween or teen is using the Internet and cell phones. Stay ahead of the TV shows so you won't be so surprised by what you see and remind your kids it's just entertainment.
