Internet and children Essay
In the XXI century the Internet has become an essential and indispensable factor for the existence of children’s society. This is a widespread fact that the Internet is not only an excellent tool for learning and entertainment, but also real danger that can bring harm for children. Increasingly, parents and teachers talk about the negative impact of the Internet on psychological, emotional and physical health of schoolchildren and converge on the idea that the Internet distracts children from learning. The Internet not only provides significant benefits for children, such as access to research, socialization, entertainment and communication with family, but also means the negative aspects, such as violence, pornography, hate sites, isolation, predators, and commercialism.
Thus, this paper introduces the topic about the Internet and children. It presents the positive and negative impacts of the Internet on children, the threats that can negatively affect children, and the measures that should be used to avoid the problems connected with the Internet use. In addition, this paper proves a thesis that although the Internet is considered to be an educational tool, yet it is fraught with great dangers to children.
The current generation of children and adolescents more often spend their free time online and communicate more frequently in the virtual world than in the real one. On the one hand, it is good because parents do not have to worry about their children since they are always with them. But on the other hand, children do not know the values of “live” communication and then they begin to withdraw into themselves and thus do not develop themselves in all spheres of our life.
In addition to the above-stated information, they have nothing to remember from their childhood except the names of various sites. Especially since the current Internet is just full of pornography and various ad units on which information is not intended for children’s minds. That is, the current generation develops together with the Internet. According to Chang, “The Internet can be an exciting place for children and teenagers because they are able to adopt different identifies and interact away from adult supervision. Yet this same autonomy also makes the Internet dangerous. Just as teenagers can create personas that are different from their real world identity, so too can sexual predators and cyberbullies” (502).
Despite this fact the Internet and computers develop logical and abstract thinking. Internet and online games can help children learn to make independent decisions, and quickly switch from one activity to another. The Internet and computers well affect creative abilities of any child.
There is no doubt that the Internet has a lot of useful information, including for children, but this information will not be displayed on every banner ads, and it has first to be found. A child, looking through colorful advertising blocks, will not be able to stand before them and click on the link and notice some images that he should not see.
This is a problem of today’s society to prevent the development of which is not under force to anyone, even to the state. Only parents can control their child and his actions on the Internet. If parents deny a child access to the Internet, he/she will be offended and refer to the fact that all his/her friends are online.
According to a recent survey, today’s children are at risk of visiting undesirable sites, downloading illegal software or engaging in communication with strangers, mostly, when using a computer at home. “Most important, online risks to children are greater than are television-related risks (regarding the extremes of violent or pornographic content, privacy or contact risks from strangers, etc.), giving rise in turn to greater anxieties among parents” (Peter and Valkenburg; Wolak et al., qtd. in Livingstone and Helsper 583).
The most important task is to warn children about the dangers of the Internet. Parents also need to discuss all the questions that their children may have when using the Internet.
What is bad can happen to a child, when parents leave him alone in front of the computer?
Meetings with unpleasant and dangerous people in chat rooms or other areas. According to statistics, it is the biggest risk for your child. Teens can easily join a group or a company that can have a negative impact on them. These are radical political groups, satanic cults, network “orgies”, etc. There is no doubt that these groups exist in the real world, but it is much easier for teenagers to take part in these gatherings, sitting at a computer at home;
Offensive, immoral contents. It is not just about pornography. In addition, there are sites devoted to pyrotechnics, suicide, discussing the actions of certain drugs. Hence, it may be followed by the infatuations with drugs, alcohol, smoking and other dangerous things. Serious danger begins when teenagers want to meet with their online friends. Remember that children can be subjects to sexual harassment;
Involvement in gambling. Even simple online “toys” can cause irreparable harm for children, occupying a vast majority of their time, distracting them from classes and relaxing, harming children’s mental and physical health;
Obtaining accurate information;
Catching different “infections” (i.e., malicious programs are downloaded automatically when you view the infected sites);
Children can become a victim of cyber-bullying via the Internet;
Children can become a victim of sexual harassment;
Moreover, Livingstone and Haddon emphasized the risks that “…include exposure to challenging content (e.g. suicide, anorexia, drugs, etc.), risks associated with user-generated content and online gambling” (319).
How to protect children from the negative consequences of the Internet use?
Teach your child not to give his personal information (name, address, number or address of his school, his phone numbers) especially in chat rooms and bulletin boards;
Be aware of e-mail messages that get your children;
Warn a child that he should not open suspicious e-mail messages, files, applications or web pages from strangers or suspicious people;
Teach children not to arrange meetings with your friends on the Internet. Explain that people in chat rooms are not always those who they are, in real life they may be very different;
Keep the computer where you prefer to control its use. Set clear requirements about the use of computers and the Internet, and always ask for them;
Spend time on the Internet with your children in order to know what things he is interested in, what your child likes doing in the Internet;
Try to establish a climate of trust and understanding. Do not blame your child for the unpleasant incidents in the Internet. Ask him to show all the messages that are unpleasant and misunderstanding for him;
Tell your child that he should not respond to offensive or dangerous e-mails in chat rooms. Different web sites that make him feel uncomfortable he must leave immediately;
It is very useful and important to buy and install a special program that gives adults a great opportunity to restrict children’s access to the undesirable resources on the Internet.
The program monitors the child’s actions and checks the content of each visited page on the Internet. If it detects suspicious information (pornography, violence, religious sects, etc.), it immediately blocks any access to this page. Among these “protectors” can be distinguished the following ones: Parental Filter, CYBERsitter, ChildWebGuardian.
Taking the above-stated information into consideration, it is possible to conclude that the Internet has become an essential and integral part of life for most people in today’s world, including children. It is necessary to know where to stop when using the Internet. A prolonged stay in the virtual world prevents children from real life, replacing it with a virtual one, which adversely affect their psyche and health. Parents should try to control their children’s time of the Internet use because they have to remember that Internet addiction is a serious problem, which can be described as a mental disorder, an obsessive desire to connect to the Internet and a painful inability to timely disconnect from the Internet. Carefully pay attention to your children how they use the Internet and teach them to make an informed and educated choice. Uncontrolled usage and access to the Internet is actually a very big problem that requires its immediate solution.
