Jeffrey Rosen writes in the NYTimes a well researched piece (provocatively titled) "The Web Means the End of Forgetting" on the premise that the web is contributing to our continual evolution of social norms such as forgiveness, exposure, voyeurism and discretion. Although Rosen doesn't address middle schoolers directly, I couldn't help but consider my own students. This current generation of middle and primary school students will help bake the standards for their world as we enter a new cultural experience shaped, in great part, by the web for the first time. In my opinion, the most significant part of the post comes at the end when Rosen opines about the need for a new conception of empathy:

In the meantime, as all of us stumble over the challenges of living in a world without forgetting, we need to learn new forms of empathy, new ways of defining ourselves without reference to what others say about us and new ways of forgiving one another for the digital trails that will follow us forever.

Expressed and genuine empathy is the one quality I admire the most in young people and I hope my daughters themselves have a strong sense of empathy (I'm an INFP after all). As we enter this brave new digital-tinged world, I wonder out loud what will become of empathy? The evening news and magazine articles targeting late 30's suburban mothers typically point to a future of zero empathy because of these evolving digital norms. However, I don't think that will be the case. Instead, perhaps these new tools are helping us realize more about ourselves as creatures than we realize.