Rules and risks on the internet: When will we wake up

Many studies have been done on the risk parents consider to be on the internet and what safety procedure have been taken for kids safe surfing for online. Apart from few countries like Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark, when comparing to rules on TV-watching it seems parents are more likely to set rules for what kids are allowed to watch and do. We seem to know the limits that are for TV materials more often than we think of online limits.

Maybe I is due to we have been told about this in some campaigns much more often than we have heard campaigns about safe surfing. People seem to know the rating system for movies, e.g. the green for allowed the yellow for not for under 12 years and red for under 16. USA and Europe have different system both movies but people seem to be more in touch with it than they are in touch with general concern on the internet.

Saying that could give us a false knowledge of we are setting rules, but even though in most countries we are more likely to be setting rules for the TV than the computer surfing most parents are not setting rules enough rules for TV or the internet. We could say with TV-watching most rules are being prepared for us and therefore it is much simpler place to set rules for, because the TV-network will air banned movies later at night and will tell us if it is gore, sex and violence. But when it comes to sites there are millions of sites and they are available up all hours of the day.

Therefore it is of course much more important to set rules and monitor the risks online and we cannot trust the site owners of the world to set the limits for us. It seem a little scary we not just have fewer rules on the internet than the TV because what we are facing is a lots more dangerous playground than our tv set.

Most parents today grew up with TV and know what it is about and many of those same parents are just learning to surf online themselves, because they did not grew up with the internet, as it is so new. So parents are less concern because it is a new playground for them, it is positive technology and we are just starting to wake up to the negative and harmful part of the internet.

The risk is online and we need to know of them with hateful website, violent and pornographic material and not to mentioned growing concern of pedophiles online preying on children. When will we wake up and see it is a harmful place to have rules and safety procedures online to protect our kids form online threats? Hopefully we are today!


by Bjorn Hardarson | goarticles.com