ScreenRetriever’s Online Safety Blog
The Internet Gives Our Kids Access To The World
There are so many concerns of Internet usage today by our children that sometimes these concerns overshadow the awesome positives about the internet. Part of teaching our children how to use the internet appropriately is to guide our children to use the internet in positive and productive ways. Here are a few ways your children can benefit from the Internet: Connect: To connect with family and friends wherever they live in the world. Communicate: To stay in touch with teachers, to have questions answered and to ask questions, to discuss particular subjects, and share information. Access to the World:...
read moreTips for parents with children online
The number of children ages 2-11 going online is growing – and teaching, responsible, safe, appropriate computer habits should be growing as well. According to ChildTrends.org more than half of kids ages three to 17 (57 percent), use the Internet at home. Kids this age, 10.3 million girls and boys, are watching online videos – and 18% of 8 to 10 year-olds are spending time on some kind of social networking site daily (Kaiser, 2010), with Bebo, MySpace and Xanga being the most popular (Royal Pingdom 2/2010). Facebook has 5,320,000 3-12 year olds users (Quantcast) even though the required age is 13....
read moreThe Desensitized Generation
The first time I watched Wizard of OZ, I was terrified of the Wicked Witch of the West and her flying monkeys. When my kids watched it, they thought it was pretty lame. Someone reminded me of a similar experience with the movie Jaws. When they watched Jaws the first time they were terrified and were reluctant to go swimming in the ocean again, but when their kids watched it the reaction was “this is supposed to be scary?” It’s apparent kids seem to have a different measure of what is scary, sexual, and violent these days. Tweens and teens may also think that wild girls, Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Paris...
read moreInternet Safety – A Public Health Issue?
Last week, the team at ScreenRetriever attended the Family Online Safety Institute Conference in Washington D.C. People from all over the world, from many different areas of Internet Safety joined in the conversation- including policy makers, educators, mental health providers, internet safety and industry experts. It was evident at this year’s F.O.S.I conference that internet safety is beginning to be recognized as a public health issue. Given the risks associated with internet usage by our children such as obesity, sleep deprivation, cyber-bullying and that the goal of public health is to protect the...
read moreCreepy neighborhoods online…do your kids visit them?
You wouldn’t take your children into areas of the city that leave your skin crawling because they’re so unsafe, yet kids are venturing into these creepy neighborhoods online. If parents knew that their children were going to these unsafe, creepy online neighborhoods wouldn’t they try to prevent it? We teach our kids at a very young age not to talk to strangers, but many tweens and teens are going online to video chatrooms that encourage kids to talk with strangers such as Chatroulette or Chathopper via webcam. When I visited these websites to see what they were about I immediately saw adult material...
read moreParenting online when your child has a computer in the bedroom
According the Kaiser Family Foundation, in 2009 36% of children ages 8-18 had computers in their bedrooms, 33% with Internet access. This is a huge change from 1999 when only 21% of kids had computers in their bedrooms and 10% had internet access. Computer usage with children and teens continues to change rapidly. In fact, some schools are beginning to provide laptops for each student and they are bringing those laptops home and want to use them in their bedrooms to do homework, play games, Skype, and go on Facebook. We all know that interacting online with their friends is what Tweens and teens love to...
read morePeers bonds becoming stronger online over that of family
Would you believe teens may have stronger bonds with their online peers than with in-person relationships? With children spending seemingly endless hours online, their relationships with their peers are becoming “as strong as family” according to a August 2010 CNET article by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore- …”teenagers reported feeling as much a part of their online communities as a part of their own families, and even more than a part of their offline hobby groups and neighbors.” Teens are less likely these days to sit down with the family and watch a television show than to go into...
read moreMultitasking while doing homework – can it be done?
With all the distractions buzzing and beeping around them, multitasking has become a huge problem for tweens and teens online. We are raising a generation of kids that text, talk and walk all at the same time. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, “40% of teens say they multitask most of the time while on the computer.” When you ask your child if they’re doing their homework, they probably respond, “Sure, Mom”. And true enough, they are doing their homework while on the computer, but at the same time they are also playing a game online, listening to their iPod, and going on...
read moreSocial Networks have age restrictions?
Many websites especially social networking sites have age restrictions, most age 13. Are tweens and teens paying attention to these restrictions when they log onto these sites? Do they even know about them? Do parents know if their children have profiles on these sites? According to a Cox Communications Study, 34% of 11 and 12 year olds have profiles on social networking sites. An iStrategyLabs study revealed the number of kids ages 13-17 using Facebook grew from 5.7 M to almost 10.7 million from 2009 to 2010. Even when tweens know about the age restrictions they sometimes lie about their age to get...
read moreOne click of a button in the cyber-world can destroy a life
The Rutgers student suicide is a tragedy. One click of a button that disseminated a cruel video caused such humiliation for a promising young violinist that he felt he had no choice but to jump off a bridge; a victim of cyberbullying. A recent article in USA Today asked the questions: “Was what happened to Clementi a hate crime, bullying, a prank or all three? Or was it just the way things are now, when technology — tiny cameras, vast networks — allow a person’s most embarrassing moments to be spread around the world, in a permanent record for all to see?” Cyberbullying is rampant. 38%...
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