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Gov't Report on Youth, Pornography, And The Internet
Frisky070802 writes "I don't recall seeing this already, nor am I finding it when searching for it ... the National Academies commissioned a report on how youths are affected by child pornography, predators, and other threats on the net. They've issued a 400-page report
on their findings, which are very extensive, and were used to support the argument for the new kids.us domain."
I'm not trying to troll here, but I think that .kids.us sounds like a better idea than the alternatives. For example, it sounds like a hell of a lot better solution than (poor) internet filtering. IMO, young children (10-12), shouldn't be exposed to ridiculous stuff online and a parent shouldn't have to watch what they do every second they are online. At the same time, we (everyone older than the first group, shouldn't have to suffer, because of fears the first group will see the questionable content. I realize there are a lot of /. zealots who would yell at the prospect of any potential filtering, but as long as it isn't implemented in a way that censors (even implicitly), it'll get my attention.
The main problem raised with filters isn't that they filter too little. It's that they filter too much. Internet whitelisting does not improve that at all. It only amplifies the problem.
.us, gotta keep them foreigners from corrupting our youth.)
kids.us is a humungous, unwieldy, unworkable, whitelist. (But at least it's
I'm all for providing a safe haven (?) for kids on the internet, after all there is a lot of filty stuff out there. However, one thing I've always found interesting is that society goes to a lot of lengths to hide young people from sex and yet no where near as much effort is spent on hiding them from violence. It seems to give the message that sex isn't OK while violence is fine. Any other thoughts on this?
If, say, 75% of men find developed girls aged 14-18 attractive, is it really logical to say 75% of men are crazy? Or perhaps, being attracted to a 14-year old isn't "whacked" (though photographing them nude may be traumatic to them).
No, these aren't real statistics, but I would say that, judging by what you see on porn sites ("barely legal" is HUGELY popular) it is not too far off to say most men have an attraction in some form to young (14->18), yet developed, girls.
I'm not saying make it legal to make of course, just that you aren't a sick pedophile who is going to assault girls if you find an 18 year old attractive (sexually). There isn't even a close correlation.
Children 14 (ie before they have developed sexually) is a whole other bag of hammers.
I do not believe that the goal of having computers in classrooms is to have brighter children. Rather, it is to make them comfortable using computers and to increase their skills in using them so that when they go out into the real world they are more competitive. The internet can also be used as a valuable resource. There were several times when my college professor's notes did not help me get an understanding of a topic, so I would go and search the web for alternate material. It almost always helped. If more money and energy was provided, the government could help transform education. As an example of what could be using today's technology, lets say all classrooms were wired. A teacher who is going to be absent for a day and needs a sub could potentially pick a lesson from a large internet repository and have the children watch the lesson that is piped over the internet as opposed to being given busy work by a clueless sub (as is all too often the case). Or I could envision homework assignments on a computer that report back to the teacher and give statistical analysis of where the students as a whole are having trouble understanding a concept, or even better, homework assignments that reinforce concepts to the children as they get things wrong, and then make them do problems until they get it down. Could you imagine the improvement that could be seen if software could pick out weaknesses and help someone understand something better, and then reinforce the concept? I do not think it is really possible to have a piece of software be the equivalent of a real live teacher next to you helping you, but, I do think it could help quite a bit.
On a side note, I made a bit of an attempt to create a piece of software to do just this over at Sourceforge, and while it appeared to be feasible to me and I did some proof of concept type stuff, my job has been killing me with hours and I have not had time to get anywhere with it. Its the eduonline project. If you have an interest in doing something like this, check it out on sourceforge and let me know.
I do not believe that the goal of having computers in classrooms is to have brighter children.
Not the goal, but a very oft-cited goal among schools I have been to and worked with. Heck, I even went to one of the schools that was involved with the Microsoft/Toshiba Anytime, Anywhere Learning project. The whole idea of it is that computer technology has some magical ability to help teach kids. We had laptops assigned to every kid, we had the entire school wired for networking, and were jacked into the 'net all through class.
Of course, the whole thing was a complete bomb. Teachers didn't know how to use the Internet. Kids spent more time in Yahoo chatrooms than following whatever website the teacher wanted them to be following along in. E-textbooks need to die. And, of course, kids learned very quickly about all the webistes out there that catalog thousands of papers for them to plagarise.
Not to say that kids don't learn from the 'net. The 'net got me involved in the demoscene and open source, which taught me to program. Various political sites gave me access to information about the world that I never would have touched any other time. I can't begin to say how liberating some BBSes were when I was 11, and when Prodigy gave its users Internet access, it gave me oppotrunites to think that I never would have otherwise had growing up in a town of 7,000.
That, and I found a lot of porn. And jerked off. I have a hard time saying that was unhealthy, though, especially from the studies I've read giving evidence that boys who are exposed to a lot of porn as adolescents have a tendency to be much more well-adjusted sexually, more likely to use condoms, &c.
The idea of a "kids-safe" domain is fundamentally sound (from a psychological perspective). The problem is that 'kids' don't like to be called "kids". Ergo, ".kids.us" is likely to be a dismal failure in the target market, even if it's a good idea (i.e., if you were 13-16, would you be caught dead surfing a domain called 'yadda-yadda.kids.com'? I didn't think so...)
"One empirical experiment is worth a thousand expert opinions." --Bill Nye, the Science Guy
Don't complain about the .us; be glad that a country is not, for once, trying to extend their authority to legislate over the entire Internet.
"Teenagers are supposed to experiment with sex to get prepared for adult life."
What basis do you have for that? I believe that teenage, extra-marital sex is just a sign of weakness, letting yourself be controlled by carnal urges. To say that that is a sign or a predecesor to maturity is, in my opinion, incorrect. It takes more maturity to resist desires and save yourself for marriage than to give in to whims. Anyway, I'm sure most people stopped reading at the first line, so I'll stop responding.
Derek
As a matter of fact, most of the pornography I've seen was downloaded from the internet in my youth. And this was back when the internet was heralded as a great tool of communication and education. There was no spam, there were few flame wars, people still knew what archie and gopher were.. Porn wasn't yet everywhere, but it was still everywhere.
.rpm without having porn spam thrown at you.
.kids. I think, rather than this, the ideal solution is for parents to shut the hell up about how much they work and how they have to think of their careers. Spend time with yer bloody offspring, and stop using the 'net as a baby sitter.
Of course, my kids won't have the free reign over the net that I had. Yet, I don't doubt that any offspring of mine will have an overabundance of porn sprung upon them. I mean, christ, you can't search for an
Is this a good thing, or a bad thing? I mean, no sane parent is going to say, "Woohoo! My kids found some porn!" On the other hand, porn, and sex itself, is still covered in a Victorian obscurity. I can't help but wonder if a greater awareness of, "Yes, people boff. People boff a lot." wouldn't result in the slowing of the spread of various diseases and such.
Anyway, enough rambling. Some domain name won't work. As someone else pointed out, kids don't like being called kids, and you won't catch one over the age of twelve browsing anything that ends in