How Dangerous Is the Internet for Children?

Having been at a CEOP event in Elgin last week with Louise Jones I have been doing a little more research on internet safety. The CEOP session was worthwhile and the material will be a useful teaching aid. But I did have a few concerns in the way that the training was delivered. I would have liked to have seen a little more acknowledgement that the internet can be a worthwhile educational and social experience for teenagers given that a large proportion of the audience admitted to having little or no experience of social networking.

David Pogue has an excellent article this week in the New York Times which examines closely the question of internet safety. He makes reference to a PBS Frontline documentary film which is certainly worth watching. It last about an hour but I could certainly see me using some of the chapters either with pupils or with parents to get a discussion going .

But if you live in terror of what the Internet will do to your children, I encourage you to watch this excellent hour long PBS “Frontline” documentary. (I learned about it in a recent column by Times media critic Virginia Heffernan).

It’s free, and it’s online in its entirety. The show surveys the current kids-online situation—thoroughly, open-mindedly and frankly.

Turns out I had it relatively easy writing about the dangers to children under age 12; this documentary focuses on teenagers, 90 percent of whom are online every single day. They are absolutely immersed in chat, Facebook, MySpace and the rest of the Web; it’s part of their ordinary social fabric to an extent that previous generations can’t even imagine.

The show carefully examines each danger of the Net. And as presented by the show, the sexual-predator thing is way, way overblown, just as I had suspected. Several interesting interview transcripts accompany the show online; the one with producer Rachel Dretzin goes like this:

“One of the biggest surprises in making this film was the discovery that the threat of online predators is misunderstood and overblown. The data shows that giving out personal information over the Internet makes absolutely no difference when it comes to a child’s vulnerability to predation.” (That one blew my mind, because every single Internet-safety Web site and pamphlet hammers repeatedly on this point: never, ever give out your personal information online.)

“Also, the vast majority of kids who do end up having contact with a stranger they meet over the Internet are seeking out that contact,” Ms. Dretzin goes on. “Most importantly, all the kids we met, without exception, told us the same thing: They would never dream of meeting someone in person they’d met online.”

Several teenagers interviewed in the story make it clear that only an idiot would be lured unwittingly into a relationship with an online sicko: “If someone asks me where I live, I’ll delete the ‘friend.’ I mean, why do you want to know where I live at?” says one girl.

[From How Dangerous Is the Internet for Children? - Pogue’s Posts - Technology - New York Times Blog]