A Microsoft research poll conducted on the MSN website has revealed some very concerning statistics about Internet usage among children. I hope this will be a wakeup call for someone with some influence.

Here are some of the findings they published in February, 2011:

The Things I was Happy To Hear

• 87% of parents reported having discussed online safety issues with their children.
• 85% of children report limiting entry to their social media profiles and pages to friends and family.

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The Things We All Need to be Really Worried About

• Only 36% of parents use parental controls or web filter software to actively protect their children online.
• 39% of children admitted to using online sites or playing video games that their parents would not approve of them using.
• 67% of children clean their cache so that parents can not check their history to see where they have been online (with a good filter installed parents could still view the history!).
• 36% take absolutely no action to limit or monitor Internet use in their home.
• 44% of parents were not aware of whether their children use privacy setting in their social media profiles to keep strangers out.
• 15% of children admitted to doing something online that was intended to be hurtful to someone else (cyber bullying).

Our children are vulnerable and it is our job as mothers and fathers, educators, etc. to protect them. But we are not. It’s too easy to pass the buck here. Law enforcement have their hands tied until it is too late and something happens. Educators can only do so much to teach kids Internet Safety and as long as no one backs them up, most kids are not going to comply to the warnings and advice. And governments are playing dumb and not taking meaningful action.

The current situation is that unless parents wake up and take responsibility for what their children are doing online, no one else is going to do it. You need to understand that what is available to children and teens – should not be. But it is. And if you don’t take care of ensuring that they are not exposed, they will be. And there are consequences.

Start by installing a web filter. Parental controls can make a very big impact in your ability to manage your family’s Internet use without requiring much effort on your part.

I can recall the first time someone showed me a web filter. In 2000, I started to work at a company that had developed an Internet Content Filter. At first, the idea made me uncomfortable. Why should anyone be able to control what others are viewing online? I was not sure that I would want to be responsible for marketing the filter software. After all, I’d been “online” for almost 15 years by then (yes – I was an early adapter of the Internet in 1985) and had never sought out or been exposed to anything that I found to be offensive or a problem. I’d heard the same stories as everyone else —  kids being tricked by strangers and pedophiles using the Internet to share images. But I believed that it was possible to set rules, to explain the do’s and don’ts and to count on kids being responsible, if you taught them the rules ahead of time.

In 2001, I had my first personal encounter with the problem of porn exposure. Continue reading “How a Web Filter Became a Household Necessity” »

It was not long ago that parents beamed with pride when their children showed enthusiasm and interest in using the computer. There was a sense that it meant that they were bright and advanced.  But all that has come full circle and parents are more and more frustrated and concerned about the increasing amount of time that their children are spending at the computer. In fact, Internet overuse among adults has become no less of a problem than it is among children with, in some cases, the repercussions being very serious.

From physical conditions that can be tied to computer overuse to concerns of social isolation and neglect of school and job responsibilities, the Internet has become a problematic influence in the lives of many children and adults alike.

Continue reading “Controlling Time Spent Online” »

There is so much to do online, it is easy to spend hours moving from site to site – writing, playing, shopping, gambling – almost anything you can do in real life, you can do on the Internet today.
That’s nice when there is a snowstorm outside or you want to save gas and shop online or pay a bill. But if you are starting to find that your virtual life is taking over and you are spending many hours each day online, you may have an Internet addiction.
From people who check their email every few seconds to teens who are wired almost 24 hours per day, the Internet is playing a more central role in our lives. And if you are not careful, it can become an unhealthy obsession.
Experts note that children growing up online suffer from a lack of social skills, problem solving skills, they are overweight, have shorter attention span and in general, are not leading a healthy lifestyle while they sit for hours in front of a computer screen. Therapists, clinics, books, and self help groups are already sprouting up offering to cure Internet addiction.

Why can’t they just stop?
Internet addiction is a hard habit to recognize in yourself. It’s not a drug – where you can say any use is outright bad. It’s not gambling, where you can tell by the looks of your bank account if you have a problem. We all use the Internet and there is nothing wrong with that. We shop, look up train schedules, pay bills, connect with friends and relatives, read the news, etc. But for some people, the Internet gradually takes more and more time from their daily lives, until one day, they find themselves practically living online. They may have a need to be constantly updated with news online, they may feel a need to be connected to friends 24 hours/day or maybe the Web simply takes the place of everything else that used to be in their life.

Why is compulsive surfing dangerous?
Problem Internet use is characterized by a difficulty to limit time spent online. Some of the more commonly recognized Internet problems are online gambling, porn addiction and online shopping. eBay addiction is a recognized addiction as more and more people find themselves hooked. Pathological Internet use can be defined as persistent and recurrent maladaptive behavior meeting the following criteria:
1. Obsessing. You have frequent thoughts about the Internet  – past experiences, future experiences and fantasies about being online.
2. Tolerance. You need to be online more frequently.
3. Withdrawal. Your mood is effected by attempts to stop or reduce Internet use.
4. Escape. Surf to improve mood or escape problems.
5. Staying online longer than intended..
6. Lying. Lies to hide his or her Internet use.
7. Loss of control. Unsuccessful attempts to reduce Internet use..
8. Spending time online despite risking or losing a relationship, job, or other significant opportunity.

Can You Prevent or Curb Internet Addiction?

Open communication is the best way to approach a loved one with a suspected problem. You can do a lot to help them. First of all, their Internet access needs to be managed by someone they trust. This does not have to mean getting rid of the family computer or canceling the Internet connection.
If your loved one admits to a problem and wants your help to overcome the problem, you can agree together to start by limiting the open access they have to the Web. Simply by installing an effective web filter, you can easily set up the precise Internet environment that you need -block out certain sites or categories of content, control the activities that can be done online and set a precise online schedule to limit when and how much time the Internet can be accessed. A web filter is a software solution,  that you install and manage on your computer. It can be a fast and easy way to curb a problem that is just beginning or helping a serious compulsive addict limit his Internet activity.

Three cheers for Apple! Hip Hip Hooray! So while Google  hires teams of lawyers to prepare all kinds of impossible to understand “terms and conditions” that protect them from any lawsuit over the fact that they allow gruesome and just plain illegal video content to be uploaded to their web properties such as Youtube, one of the big guys is finally stepping up and taking responsibility. Continue reading “Apple is Removing Sexual Content from the App Store” »

time spent online

When I first took a job as the Marketing Director at a parental control software company 10 years ago, I was a little hesitant. My first impression had been that this company was selling a product that censors and I would never feel comfortable with promoting censorship. But quickly, I learned that such a view is a completely distorted understanding of what role  the Internet should play in our lives.

Think of it this way. We are all born into and grow up within some kind of structure with rules. In the real world, kids have rules, the content we all have access to is monitored and controlled. Consider what is available on television or in the public library. The content that is available to us is based on cultural norms. We can say that exposing children to porn is wrong – there is a consensus on that. No one would knowingly allow their adolescent daughter to attend daily training sessions on how to hide their eating disorders from their families.  Now if a pornography publisher would come to the school library and want to line the magazine shelves with porn, we all know that could not happen and we all agree that it should not happen. No one would call that censorship.   If a child is out on the playground and a group of kids start to verbally bully him and a teacher overhears but chooses to walk away to a place where she cannot hear and ignores what is happening, we all know that the teacher’s actions would be questioned and we would object to her indifference as a lack of responsibility.

So why is anything different when it happens online? Why shouldn’t the same rules we apply in real life apply to the lives we are living on the Internet – rules of normalcy, good taste, limits, decency, age appropriate behavior, etc?