Motion: “Is Internet a dangerous revolution?
Presented by Ana Bermúdez Gavito
The internet has caused several problems but it implies a real revolution in recent years.But, what about teenagers or children? Do they really know all the dangers?
In my opinion we should take care of our children specially when they surf on the internet and with the online dangers such as explicit spam, sexual grooming, etc.
It’s obvious that there is no technical solution that will ever be 100% perfect, but I think, particularly for younger children that are going online, that the should play a valuable role in helping us to keep them away from horrific images that any parent really wants young children to be exposed to.
On the other hand, children themselves may not be as angelic as they seem. With the tools that they now have - wonderful, engaging, creative tools like social networking, like mobile phone technology, like instant messaging - they can also hurt and cause distress and abuse other children and young people.
Apart from that, as all of us well know, the Internet and digital technology can take an existing problem and multiply it a hundred times.
The idea that the only thing that kids need worry about on the internet is generated by outsiders, is mistaken.
In this era of user generated content, we can be our own worst enemies.
A lot of kids think, somehow, that their social networking sites are private, and they are astonished when their own parents find them, and get quite angry about that. So an awful lot of education needs to be done.
Many of today’s teenagers are not afraid to openly post and discuss every aspect of their lives. They write posts about their personal lives, provide photos and share their emotions. Teens are taking advantage of new publishing tools, like blogs and social networks. Teens complain about parents and homework; they share daily dramas, post songs from the latest bands, display pictures of themselves.
Many teens and young adult are aware of the risk of using blogs and social networking services. But teens are unlikely to abandon these new communication tools that have become a way of life for many of them.
Comments»
I don’t think internet is dangerous. There are programs made for the parents control, which allows you to censor what your children should see. For me is obvious that internet have more good points than bad ones, but anyway if you think that’s not true you always could stop using it.
While computer exploration opens a world of possibilities for children, expanding their horizons and exposing them to different cultures and ways of life, they can be exposed to dangers, because there are individuals who attempt to sexually exploit children through the use of on-line services and the Internet. Some of these individuals seduce them with attention, affection, kindness, and even with gifts. They listen to the problems of children and they are aware of the latest music, hobbies, and interests of children.
It is important for parents to understand that children can be indirectly victimized through conversation, for example in chats.
In my opinion, parents and children should remember that a computer-sex offender can be somebody.
I agree whit Diana, Internet has a lot of good things.It is known that Internet is very useful, even for children; there are a lot of activities for develope their mind. But it is truth that for a naive persone, like a kid, it could be very offensive. There are a lot of information wich a kid shouldn´t know.
For me, it´s parental responsability, take care about their children´s use of internet, although they get angry or whatever.
Internet is not dangerous if you do know what you’re doing…
My life has definitely changed since I’n online as I can keep my foreing friends in touch,I can read different oppinions and give mine,I can find useful matherials related to studying stuff and I can also have a nice time.
I’m not naive enough to think there’s no warning at all.Everything has a dark side so we need to be careful.Not only because children sexual abuses and so on,but also because addiction.The number of internet-addicts has incredibly increased and I’ve read that groups of therapy have been created in order to help those people.This is not so flabbergasting,as the number of mobile-addicts and technology-freaks have also increased.
In my case,I like internet and enjoy being online but I try to be balanced in order not to spend too much time in front of the computer.
Like everybody knows, it depends on how you use it.
For me, Internet has brougt us new opportunities: we can be in touch with friends or we can find information about what we´re studying. Besides, if you want to know wath is happening in the world, you can find everything here. And, of course, another fantastic issue it that it resolves all of our doubts (for example, how to prepare foreigh food).
On the other hand, Internet contains a lot of mistakes and, what is worse, dangerous webs for children or teenagers.
Well, Diana I do agree with you. Internet have lots of good points, I must say that I couldn’t prepare a project without using Internet. However, I hardly believe that parents can control what their children do or even what they write on boards.
I disagree with lollipop and for me is not only parental responsibility is a problem of all of us.
I´m not specially interested in computers in general, but I agree with Abbey about the new opportunities we get on line.
Maybe the real problem is that most of us don´t know where is the limit for it. Not many years ago we all managed quite well to work or study without the internet and now it seems as if we can´t live without it.
The Internet could be a dangerous revolution to children because they can be easy victims of their own dangerous behaviour if they are not supervised by an adult when they are connected to the Internet.
Signs that might show this behaviour could be neglecting school assignments, avoiding normal social activities, being secretive and having sleeping problems.
So, although nowadays there are many benefits of being connected, it is necessary to protect them against harmful Internet content by blocking unsuitable web sites.
Children should not be allowed to surf without supervision or, at least, without filereing software.
I have a question for The Nerd and all people who think Children should not be allowed to surf without supervision. What does this mean?That parents have to be all time next to their children to control everything they do?I mean, Internet is not the only danger for children today. there isn´t violent games that parents buy for them??there isn´t cartoons very violent too and rude?is more harmful internet than having a mobile phone when children are 9 or 10 years old??
So what I mean is that internet is not the only danger to which they are exposed.
Of course I agree with the fact that parents have to control what their children do when the are connected to the network but in the same way they control what they watch on TV. the game they play with or the friends they have (maybe a friend could have a lot of influence over him and this turned to be worse than surfing the Net).
Nobody can deny that Internet has changed the world. Nowadays, we can do amost all things you can imagine: work,study,buy what you want, watching films..So,It´s obvious that it has much more positive points than negative.
About what Sugar said, I think that controling what a child (I mean a child, and not a teenager) does on the internet is not that hard. Maybe the programs for the parents control are not perfect, but you could always sit with you child and surf on together. Maybe the problem is that parents prefer leaving the child in front of the computer or the TV and using their free time in more relaxing activities.
Internet has advantages and disadvantages. Perhaps the current crimes are more related with Internet, and the positive side is that you can find a lot of information when you need to do a work.
Nowadays we have to be more careful with giving permission to our children for using the internet, they must have to have a limited age to use it. I can’t understand how parents buy internet for children under 6 years old, if they use it; they are not going to learn at school, they are not going to read books, and a lot of more things. It has been appearing new diseases because our children depend on internet in a huge amount, they can live without it. It is quite frustrating to see how they are wasting their time and the possibility of learning more interesting thing.
So yes, from my point of view, internet should be prohibited for children under fifteen years old, the childhood must be preserved.
Dear Su, I completely agree with you that the Internet has many more positive aspects than negative, but we should follow some advice related to protecting children against harmful Internet content.I have some facts to support my ideas. Following a recent survey made on Asturian teenagers about their use of the Internet the conclusions were:
1. Their dependence to be connected is increasing. For that reason some of them are losing sleep or preferring to be connected rather than playing with friends.
2. Their access to chats is hugely increasing and frequently they chat and meet up with unknown people.
In conclusion, I can tell you that, as a father, I’m very concerned about this subject and I’m totally for a supervised use of the Internet (filtering software and restricted chatting are the key points) and for a demand for more information at school about a “healthy” use of Internet avoiding the dangers of this, undoubtedly, fantastic invention.
As Su said on her post, Internet isn’t much more dangerous than could be TV or some console games. Although the increase of internet is due to Porn, as we can read on this interesting article
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2002/mar/03/internetnews.observerfocus
, its appearance in the early years of the seventy’s was a very important event on this technological world that bring us the chance to interact each other in a very easily way and, of course, to share whatever we want through the net.
I don’t want to enter in a discussion about piracy or viruses because there is another open debate with this topic, but I think that the real danger and the principal advantage of Internet, especially on its first years, was freedom. Freedom to share and post everything, so young people could have access, not only to sex websites, but to violent websites, which could be more dangerous indeed than a couple making sex, I think. Fortunately (or unfortunately if you are a selfless pirate), authorities are taking part day by day in a strong prosecution of this illegal activities and there are many programs which help parents to protect their children from this sites with a parental control.
However, we don’t have to fall in a strong censorship of the net. Internet is an informative tool like many others, that could be so dangerous as we want. So, parents have to be aware about its risks and tips to prevent themselves and their children from other people, who are the final guilty of the crime, not internet for itself.
Cosual, Do you really think that internet should be banned for children under fifteen years old?
Surffing the net, could be danger, but for that, there are some parental control programmes.
Teaching children how to use the computer, for me, is essential nowadays, and internet is a part of it.