Parents' Guide to DISconnected

Intensely provocative and unsparingly honest, DISconnected encourages viewers to think long and hard about the downside of mixing technological dependence with interpersonal relationships by presenting scenarios that aren't much of a stretch to envision in the real world. Cyberbullying, sexting, and Internet predators are familiar terms in this day and age, and this movie illustrates plausible situations in which these dangers might arise. It's a bold attempt to remind teens that what they think is safe behavior online just might land them in a similar predicament. Intense though it is, this story probably isn't enough to scare your teens off social networking entirely, since it's so ingrained in their life, but its messages might just stick with them and influence the decisions they make regarding their online activities. Although the movie centers on a fictitious website, it's reminiscent of plenty of real ones your teens probably know about, like Facebook and Twitter.

Even if your teens or tweens aren't quite ready for the movie's edgy content -- which includes a suicide that's fueled by uncensored responses to a video post -- it's well worth your time to watch DISconnected yourself, especially if you're less tech-savvy than your kids. True, it's guilty of being a little one-sided, but it's an eye-opening glimpse at the dark side of one of our kids' "super-peers," and it will give you a good idea of the kinds of issues you should discuss with teens about their own online habits and relationships.