As society progresses, technology advances. The usage of the internet has increased exponentially through recent years. It has became unusual for citizens of this modern age to not have access to online resources. Many adults and children are very active online.
By making friends on social websites, writing blogs on public domains, filling up online surveys etc. we are constantly sharing our personal information. There are all sorts of people on the internet. There are cases of sexual predators meeting children online or criminals cheating money from victims. Children lack the perspective to forsee the possible consequences of posting information online. Thus, they are espcially prone to the "dangers" of the internet.
Recognising such concerns, many governments have set laws to prevent online sites from obtaining of children's personal data without the consent of their parents. In United States, the Child Online Privacy Protection Act imposes significant restrictions on sites that are likely to gather personal data of children under 13.
However, these laws have many limitations. Under these laws, many sites like Facebook have banned users below 13 years of age. This has encouraged many children to open online accounts by lying about their age. This is even more dangerous because due to their having a fake age, they will be more likely to be exposed to information unsuitable and detrimental to those of their actual age.
The part of the law that permits sharing of information with parental consent is also impractical. It is extremely difficult to account for parental consent. The submission of a mobile phone number, credit card number or e-mail are typical ways used by sites to confirm parental consent. However, children might just input their own mobile number or e-mail addresses instead. Credit card numbers are also easily obtainable in many cases. Therefore, legal measures are not enough to protect children from the dangers of the online world.
Parents should explain these dangers to their children and also adequately oversee their children's online activities. By letting children understand the dangers they could face can encourage them to be more careful about the information they share online. Some parents make the extra effort to know everything their child is doing online. There are also those who go as far as to implement restrictions to their child's online time and visitable sites. These are viable methods to protect children. However, they should not be carried out to the extremes.
If parents are over protective, children might feel that their freedom and privacy is compromised. This might result in children trying to access forbidden sites on purpose or attempting to hide their activities from their parents. A child may have better understanding of emerging technology than his parents. Thus, it is not impossible for children to hide online activities from their parents. Youngsters have went as far as to develop an internet slang for chatting. POS, for example, stands for "parent over shoulder". As a fact, most parents are not aware of their children's actual online behavior. This exposes children to more danger, achieving the opposite effect to what parents have in mind.
On the other extreme, there are parents who have no idea of what dangers their children might run into online. There are many cases when parents or even teachers are the ones who encourage primary school children to open Facebook accounts for the sake of convenience. While schools do talk about the dangers of the internet with the students during Civics and Moral Education, they are not showing what they teach. Many primary schools send mixed signals to their pupils by posting photos and names on public school websites.
Social attitude towards the internet should definitely be improved on. The blithe attitudes of some adults towards this issue should be changed. We should put in more effort to make both adults and children more aware of the dangers of sharing too much information on the internet. Hopefully, together with the legislative initiatives in place, this can help people be more careful on the internet and reduce victims to internet related crimes.
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