Stranger danger – the virtual reality
Watching a Panorama programme last night about child safety and the internet made me realise how the digital revolution has made the world smaller for teenagers in the last decade.
It is now so easy for teens to keep in touch with friends as they can communicate by mobile phone (calls and texting), by email, have virtual chats with Instant Messenging and web cameras (eg. MSN Messenger), meet up in online chat rooms, and exchange personal information on social networking websites (eg. Facebook). In fact, technically they don’t even need to leave their bedrooms to conduct their social lives! Gone are the days of queuing for the phone (aka as the landline) and passing notes in class!
Whilst the digital communication boom is proving a hit with the kids it is starting to become a headache for parents. While the stranger danger message is still loud and clear in the real world, in the virtual world, it can often seem harmless to talk to people you don’t know from the safety of your home. However, unfortunately, it is also easy for children to accidentally provide pedophiles with enough personal information to put themselves in danger.
In one of the cases shown in the programme a young girl discussed details of a forthcoming school trip on a social networking site. Unfortunately, one of the strangers that she had added to her list of accepted friends turned out to be a middle aged man who then turned up on the day of the trip and, recognising her from her photos online tried to talk to her with a group of friends. Realising something wasn’t quite right the teens took a picture of the man on their mobiles and ran away. The picture was then given to the police, who identified him as a known offender and arrested him.
One of the key themes of the Panorama programme was to encourage parents to take control of who their children are communicating with and when and where this happens. One suggestion was that parents talk to their children and reinforce why it is important that they only communicate with their “real” friends and discuss what sort of personal information is dangerous to make publicly available online (eg. mobile number, home address, details of after school clubs).
Another suggestion was to ban computers from the bedroom and to keep them in a busy family room, such as the living room. This not only makes it easier for parents to keep an eye on which websites their children are frequenting and to see who they are talking to, but, with the possibility of parents and other family members walking past in the background, discourages unsavoury characters from misusing web cameras for sexual grooming.
If online chat looks like double Dutch it might also be wise to learn some of the key internet slang epxoressionas and abbreviations. http://www.netlingo.com/ is a great resource for this! One common expression that you might find handy to know is POS, which translates as PARENT OVER SHOULDER!
Useful Links:
Panorama - One Click from Danger
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/7174814.stm
Panorama – Internet Dos and Don’ts – advice for parents:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/7172159.stm
Thinkuknow Website – advice for parents:
http://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/parents/
Internet Family Guide - Get IT? Got IT?:
http://www.nch.org.uk/uploads/documents/GetITGotITGoodbooklet.pdf
Internet slang - find out what your children are really saying!
http://www.netlingo.com