Thursday, May 11, 2006
VisualAids :Cyber Safety for Your Kids and You
One day my daughter came home from school and asked if she had a hotmail account. I said no. Puzzled I probed further and learnt that her friends were using it to engage in instant messaging online. For the uninitiated, instant messaging is just like email except that conversations happen real-time. Wow I thought these kids are pretty savvy. I only learnt how to use messaging from the office early this year. Then I discovered these kids even have their own blogs or personal websites to pen their thoughts. Nothing unusual you may say - except that these kids are just 9 or 10 year-olds!
Amazed and rather alarmed, I decided to check up on cyber safety for kids. Today I shall be sharing some of my findings. Some of the tips unearthed apply equally to us adults too.
Dangers of the internet
So, what are the dangers lurking online for your kids? I’ll highlight two areas: What they see or rather what they shouldn’t see and who they may meet.
What they see : What they may see include sites showing graphic pornography or sites promoting hate, discrimination, violence, suicide or simply, unhealthy behavior such as alcohol, drug use, gambling and extreme diets.
Children may accidentally stumble across these sites or there may just be pop-up messages dropping down out of thin air, enticing them to click on that cute cartoon, leading to goodness knows where.
Who they meet: Who they meet is another source of danger. The cyber baddies include:
1. Predators who frequent chat rooms and instant messaging services with ill intentions of gaining trust and then luring victims out for a meeting.
This poses a real risk in Singapore as a study showed that Singapore teenagers are pretty gung ho. 16% are likely to meet strangers befriended online. Worse, one in five will go ALONE.
Sadly a few had suffered from this lack of caution. Some reported being hurt physically, some verbally abused. In 2003, two teenage girls met up with a cyber pal, Raymond Pok and ended up as his rape victims. The 26-year-old engineer had posed as a heartbroken teen.
2. Cyber bullies: The second group, cyber bullies are like any school bullies except that bullying occurs online. Tactics employed include sending mean or threatening messages; tricking their victim into revealing personal or embarrassing information and forwarding to others; using their victim’s account to send cruel or untrue messages around. There have been known cases of teenage suicides in the west as a result of cyber bullying. Although the local prevalence is not clear, we should be alert to its potentially deadly consequences.
.3. Others include identity thieves who masquerade as you to make postings or purchases over the Internet. Scam artists, giving away freebies or claiming you are a prizewinner or a beneficiary in the will of a deceased stranger. All out to snare you into their traps!
What can we do? What can we do to protect ourselves?
1. Keep Your Identity Private
Never give out any personal information online. Avoid disclosing your full name, address, telephone number, school, or any information that could help someone track your identity. No pictures online. No credit card information.
Never tell anyone your password, even friends. The exceptions for kids are, of course, parents.
As a precaution, you may like to do an internet search, say using Google or yahoo, with your names in quotes and see what throws out. This may sound paranoid but you may be surprised at the amount of your public information online.
2. Never get together with someone you “meet” online
You never know for certain if they are who they say they are. If children insist on the meeting, they should discuss first with their parents. Arrange to meet in a public place, like a coffee shop or mall that you (not just the other person) are familiar and comfortable with, and NEVER go alone. Unless you want to end up on the newspapers headlines!
3. Educate your kids, be Open and Available, Take precautions
The last point for parents: do educate your kids about the dangers of the Internet. Don’t click on an unknown link, popup messages or emails from unknown sources.
Be open and available for your kids. Tell them that if they do see something uncomfortable, talk to a trusted adult right away. Assure them that they won’t get in trouble if they admit they came across something inappropriate.
For added precautions, install filtering devices to block undesirable websites and position the computer in a busy area, like I do, in my study room, where the screen is clearly visible to all.
Your decision ….
The Internet is no doubt an important medium that has invaded our lives. But it is fraught with dangers. We can take an extremist view, padlock our kids up and banish it altogether from our lives. But then we may end up like the dinosaur- beating a sure path to extinction!
Or you can learn to overcome the dangers and embrace the Internet with an open mind. Be astute to the hidden dangers. Take precautions for yourself and your kids. So yes, you can cyber surf wisely – and yes, you can be safe, not sorry!
26 April 2006
Ref : These are some useful websites :wiredkids.org ,disney.go.com/surfswell, mcgruff.org, safekids.com .
Amazed and rather alarmed, I decided to check up on cyber safety for kids. Today I shall be sharing some of my findings. Some of the tips unearthed apply equally to us adults too.
Dangers of the internet
So, what are the dangers lurking online for your kids? I’ll highlight two areas: What they see or rather what they shouldn’t see and who they may meet.
What they see : What they may see include sites showing graphic pornography or sites promoting hate, discrimination, violence, suicide or simply, unhealthy behavior such as alcohol, drug use, gambling and extreme diets.
Children may accidentally stumble across these sites or there may just be pop-up messages dropping down out of thin air, enticing them to click on that cute cartoon, leading to goodness knows where.
Who they meet: Who they meet is another source of danger. The cyber baddies include:
1. Predators who frequent chat rooms and instant messaging services with ill intentions of gaining trust and then luring victims out for a meeting.
This poses a real risk in Singapore as a study showed that Singapore teenagers are pretty gung ho. 16% are likely to meet strangers befriended online. Worse, one in five will go ALONE.
Sadly a few had suffered from this lack of caution. Some reported being hurt physically, some verbally abused. In 2003, two teenage girls met up with a cyber pal, Raymond Pok and ended up as his rape victims. The 26-year-old engineer had posed as a heartbroken teen.
2. Cyber bullies: The second group, cyber bullies are like any school bullies except that bullying occurs online. Tactics employed include sending mean or threatening messages; tricking their victim into revealing personal or embarrassing information and forwarding to others; using their victim’s account to send cruel or untrue messages around. There have been known cases of teenage suicides in the west as a result of cyber bullying. Although the local prevalence is not clear, we should be alert to its potentially deadly consequences.
.3. Others include identity thieves who masquerade as you to make postings or purchases over the Internet. Scam artists, giving away freebies or claiming you are a prizewinner or a beneficiary in the will of a deceased stranger. All out to snare you into their traps!
What can we do? What can we do to protect ourselves?
1. Keep Your Identity Private
Never give out any personal information online. Avoid disclosing your full name, address, telephone number, school, or any information that could help someone track your identity. No pictures online. No credit card information.
Never tell anyone your password, even friends. The exceptions for kids are, of course, parents.
As a precaution, you may like to do an internet search, say using Google or yahoo, with your names in quotes and see what throws out. This may sound paranoid but you may be surprised at the amount of your public information online.
2. Never get together with someone you “meet” online
You never know for certain if they are who they say they are. If children insist on the meeting, they should discuss first with their parents. Arrange to meet in a public place, like a coffee shop or mall that you (not just the other person) are familiar and comfortable with, and NEVER go alone. Unless you want to end up on the newspapers headlines!
3. Educate your kids, be Open and Available, Take precautions
The last point for parents: do educate your kids about the dangers of the Internet. Don’t click on an unknown link, popup messages or emails from unknown sources.
Be open and available for your kids. Tell them that if they do see something uncomfortable, talk to a trusted adult right away. Assure them that they won’t get in trouble if they admit they came across something inappropriate.
For added precautions, install filtering devices to block undesirable websites and position the computer in a busy area, like I do, in my study room, where the screen is clearly visible to all.
Your decision ….
The Internet is no doubt an important medium that has invaded our lives. But it is fraught with dangers. We can take an extremist view, padlock our kids up and banish it altogether from our lives. But then we may end up like the dinosaur- beating a sure path to extinction!
Or you can learn to overcome the dangers and embrace the Internet with an open mind. Be astute to the hidden dangers. Take precautions for yourself and your kids. So yes, you can cyber surf wisely – and yes, you can be safe, not sorry!
26 April 2006
Ref : These are some useful websites :wiredkids.org ,disney.go.com/surfswell, mcgruff.org, safekids.com .
# posted by CME @ 10:03 PM 
