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Online Parent-Child Gap Widens
The Secret to Raising Smart Kids writes "A new study by Dafna Lemish from the Department of Communication at Tel Aviv University has found that there is an enormous gap between what parents think their children are doing online and what is really happening. 'The data tell us that parents don't know what their kids are doing,' says Lemish. The study found that 30% of children between the ages of 9 and 18 delete the search history from their browsers in an attempt to protect their privacy from their parents, that 73% of the children reported giving out personal information online while the parents of the same children believed that only 4% of their children did so, and that 36% of the children admitted to meeting with a stranger they had met online while fewer than 9% of the parents knew that their children had been engaging in such risky behavior. Lemish advises that parents should give their children the tools to be literate Internet users and most importantly, to talk to their children. 'The child needs similar tools that teach them to be [wary] of dangers in the park, the mall or wherever. The same rules in the real world apply online as well.'"
Only 4% of parents think their child has given out personal information online, but 8+% (the only thing I can think from the way the summary puts it) believe their child has physically met a stranger they had met online? Is it just me, or is this backwards at best?
36% admitted to meeting strangers?? Risky Business? I call bull
When they say stranger, they mean...ANYONE THE KID HASNT MET BEFORE.
Damn media blows the whole "online predator" shit way out of proportion. The same kids that meet 45 yr old men are the same ones that would get into a van because the guy offered them candy.
Protect the children my ass. Just makes politicians look good
All your 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 are belong to us
Not really. You could meet up with someone you met online without giving them any personal info. Use an alias, don't tell them your address or anything. Just say where to meet and what you'll be wearing. But it's kinda weird that parents think that their kids will be prudent enough to play the game carefully like that. If a kid was meeting a stranger that they got acquainted with online, I expect they probably would've given out personal info at some time. But what do I know? I'm just an out-of-touch adult and Slashdot reader.
I was mostly hoping he was learning to hack, but afraid that he was probably just surfing for pr0n and MP3s... I did warn him a couple times about file sharing, and I did maintain control of the router. But for the most part, he was responsible, so I let him be.
I was richly rewarded. He's 20 and turning out to be a hacker, much to my relief. :-)
John
According to a recent study, parents are becoming increasingly negligent when it comes to raising their children. The study found that over one-third (38%) of children had been allowed to meet with a stranger they met on the internet. Parental standards have been falling for years, but this recent study gives insight as to the increasing threat of a lack of parental oversight.
In an unrelated study, scientists found that approximately 40% of people aged 9-18 years old should be "destroyed for the good of mankind."
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
"Lemish advises that children should give their parents the tools to be literate Internet users"
Seriously, the idea that the only people who meet new friends online are cruising for illegal sex reminds me of Victorians refusing to answer the telephone because that wasn't how suitable people became acquainted.
Remember that case of the girl who killed herself because her former best friend and their parents, people she knew from real life, were tormenting her online? I was just reading about how when the dead girl's parents finally allowed her to get a myspace account for her birthday, after much begging and pleading, it was on the condition that her mother literally be looking over her shoulder the entire time she was logged on. If anything contributed to her death, it wasn't insufficient paranoia, it was the superstitious awe this entire family apparently had for the internet.
Let's RTFA for a change. It says: "Thirty-six percent from the high school group admitted to meeting with a stranger they had met online" (empasis mine). That is, these "children" are between 16 and 18. Also, I strongly suspect that those strangers are mostly other kids just like them. Talk about spin.
There's a pretty big difference between a 9 year old and an 18 year old, especially when it comes to what they should/should not be doing online.
For example, deleting your search history? The nine year old hasn't really got anything to be doing that for; the 18 year old may be googling about any number of things he/she doesn't want her parent to be aware of: sex education (protection, diseases, etc), boyfriends/girlfriends, etc.. Teenagers are especially protective of their privacy.
Giving out personal information online, i.e, signing up for things, is something 18 year olds may do every day, while a 9 year old shouldn't be doing it at all. Myspace, anyone? (Although the 4% response by parents make me think they don't know what's required to sign up for a lot of these things, or the type of information you post to facebook.)
Meeting with someone you met online is risky business no matter what age you are; a 9-year-old certainly shouldn't be doing at all, but hopefully the 18-year-olds aren't dumb enough to meet a stranger at his/her house, or in a dark alley somewhere. But (take Craigslist for example) there are some reasons why you'd legitimately be meeting someone you only came into contact with on the internet, and it's perfectly safe as long as you do it smart (public place, daylight, etc). 18 year olds are smart enough to do this (hopefully); 9 year olds are not.
So yes, while they are doing a survey of minors (who are the responsibilities of their parents/guardians), the age ranging from 9 prepubescent to 18 (ready to go off to college) is too wide for the figures to be of any real meaning.
Nemilar http://www.techthrob.com - Visit Me!
... and children never lie on surveys.
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
Child molestation is mostly by friends and family, plus the occasional priest. 80% friends and family, 20% strangers. So, kids, get out of the house, stay away from churches, and head for the mall.
Well, in 1900, you didn't have adults having sex with 16 year old kids. Why? Because in 1900, a 16 year old wasn't a kid. It is sometimes amazing how bad the epidemic has become that has reduced an entire nation to the point that it takes ~30% longer to reach adulthood than it did just 100 years ago.
I would agree with the '70s though. There is no way that a parent with only partial custody of their child is going to be able to keep track of what their child is doing. At this point most most parents share custody, often having minority time, with the state through our 'public education' system.
the parent-technology gap? I mean who's going to educate the kids about the dangers of the Internet when the kids know more about the Internet than their parents? I know a lot of parents that click on those "warning your computer is infected with viruses" banners. Can you imagine if they told their kids, "Click on that! We must have a virus!"
You want fun, go home and buy a monkey!
I could be wrong her, but it seems that people fear what they don't know. Are there reasons to fear some things on the internet? Yes, there certainly are... and there are tons of wastes of time on the internet, tons of bad things, etc. But when a parent decides the whole thing is incredibly dangerous - because the don't know any better - then there's a problem.
I'd imagine it's like parks. What if the only thing you heard about public parks was drugs, for example. Well, that's quite possibly true at 3am. This is probably not news to most parents - and if it is, they shouldn't be parents - letting your 13 year old daughter walk around the park at 3am is probably not a good idea. Now, if parents knew nothing about parks and figured that the whole thing was a bad place, that's totally different... whether or not your kid can ever go alone or not (during the day) is a personal decision, and I'm sure there are parks that probably are bad, period, but in general, ignorance of the park contributes to paranoia, if anything.
Applying that to the internet then, ignorance of it seems to be a huge problem. Giving a 9 year old complete access of the computer, not talking to him about anything, giving him a 1.5Mbit connection... uh, well, that seems pretty silly. Giving him nothing because you're afraid of the whole thing, that's also bad. Why is this so hard to figure out? Do you just give your kid a car when he turns 16 and hope he can end up driving safely? (sorry, had to use a car analogy). Nooo, seems like one of the points of parenting is to impart your wisdom from experience, and if you don't have experience in it, get experience in it and exercise wisdom, not paranoid behavior as if everything not around in 1975 is bad.
Oh, last comment. I find it interesting that parents think public schools are great places to send their kid and have no clue what goes on and get paranoid about the internet. I dunno. Maybe it's just that society is stupid now (parents included in that social generalization).
hidden directories are fun. way back when, like early 90s in college, i had this cushy evening shift job where i filed and did computer backups. lots of 'down' time. so when i wasn't using the gym equipment, i was playing games on the phone receptionist's PC. so i'd create a hidden directory to store them in, and use non-printing extended ascii codes for the directory names. and back then, that was plenty sufficient to get away with running a few unauthorized programs. i guess today, if a kid wanted to be really sneaky, he'd just make another partition and dual-boot into linux or somthing. then, even if his folks were to somehow get wise, they'd have a whole 'nother layer of obscurity (and even security) to deal with. i don't think it's even possible to narrow the gap. unless your parents are geeks themselves, they just don't have the same amount of free time plus hormonal motivation to stay one step ahead of you.
In Israel, if a girl working at a check-out counter thinks you are hot, then she'll write her phone number on the cash register slip. So does a check-out line count as an on-line encounter?
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Hey, the suggestion those guys give is actually a good one! Teach your kids to use the net sensibly. Protect your privacy, be wary of strangers that offer you deals that are "too good to be true", don't just trust people because they appear nice online...
And that teaching should come from the same people that fill out every damn form on a "click the monkey to win" spin, answer "easy money fast" spam and hand out their banking details to widows of Nigerian presidents?
Sorry, but first of all we'd have to teach the parents, the adults, how to be safe online. But that is so much work, and we don't want to deal with that internet thingamajig stuff that our kids are so much into, ain't there some program that could do it? Or wait, what do we have a government for, anyway, they should handle that!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I came of age almost exactly at the crossroads time - the very earliest stages of AOL on a Mac when they still charged some $7/hr and "it was all brand new".
After a discussion with my parents, we figured out a truism that's still useful: make acquaintances online all you want, but shield your personal info. Only when someone was close enough for a real visit did I share real info for purposes such as meeting in an activity club like an RPG group.
Nowadays, shielding info at least slows down bored "Google Trolls" who want to look up anyone they stumble onto. As other threads pointed out, this now includes employers. A good boss will eventually get to know you, but you don't want to be the star of a passe Meme.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Don't underestimate the "hormonal motivation" of a parent wanting to protect his/her kid.
SIG: TAKE OFF EVERY 'CAPTAIN'!!
Ok, so there are baddies and pr0n on line. That's reality.
What they are not reporting is how to deal with this as a parent. Two kinds of parents. Geek ones and non-geek ones. From there, you get two more sub-types. Parents who take the time and parents that don't.
Just pulling numbers outta my ass, I think it's safe to day only 1 in 4 parents actually share the Internet with their kids and...
THAT IS THE WHOLE PROBLEM.
So fix that and suddenly we don't have this "but think of the kiddies" scare.
(From that 1 in 4 parents, who has taken the time)
1. Surf with your kids.
2. Build a trust relationship. They need to know you are there to help them and you both are there to learn stuff.
If you hear about them doing something bad, before they tell you about it, they get hammered really hard. On the other hand, if they run into a situation and bring it to you, they get help with it, not harsh judgement.
Kids who are looking at pr0n online have needs that are not being met otherwise. It's ugly, for some parents, but they need to deal with that and the pr0n issue will go away. This is true for most online behaviors. Deal with it.
3. It's ok to lie on the net. Sort all that out with them and establish good behaviors with them. This is why you surf with them --to provide context.
Lots more, but just doing those will bring the kid - parent online relationship to a level that is safe.
We need to see more articles like this, and far fewer scary ones. Nothing worse than scared and ignorant people trying to parent kids.
Blogging because I can...
As a parent:
Password protect the BIOS. Remove booting from anything but the hard drive and lock the case away. All you get is a keyboard, mouse, and monitor.
And www.safeeyes.com for a Windows based monitoring package.
Layne
Now, I'm a pesky 40-something, and work in an environment with a wide age range demographic. I find it amusing that I've been in the computer field for almost as many years as my boss is old! :-)
But you know what? Being a pesky 40-something gives me a huge advantage: I know how to make things happen, how to get shit done. You 20-somethings may know all the ins and outs about the latest technologies and what not, but do you know how to put it all togeher to produce something? Can you navigate around the myriad problems and issues with integration, for instance? And I just don't mean integrating the technology itself, but integrating your firm's goals with what vendors wish to give you? Or integrating the expectations of many departments and keeping them all on the same page? Or even members of your team?
Oh, and in some areas, I can still run circles around most 20-somethings tech-wise. Being 20-something is not what it's all cracked up to be. Youth is wasted on the young. That is to say, by the time you understand how to actually take avantage of being a 20-something, you're now a 40-something!!!!
Sorry, fresh out of time machines.
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
The study found that 30% of children between the ages of 9 and 18 delete the search history from their browsers in an attempt to protect their privacy from their parents, that 73% of the children reported giving out personal information online
Okay, so 30% of kids understand the implications of their online presence enough to clear the cache to protect their privacy - But then (at least) 10% (((73+30)-100)/30) of those same kids give out personal info online?
Does not compute - Unless this "survey" had extremely biased questions in a sad attempt to prove how dangerous we should all consider the spooooooooky intarweb. For example, what constitutes "personal info"? Using a real name to register for a website? Buying something through Amazon? Clicking "I am not over 18" to get redirected to disney.com?
36% of the children admitted to meeting with a stranger they had met online
Same problem - What constitutes "meeting with a stranger"? At the younger end of the surveyed age range, they have no ability to really go anywhere without parental assistance; this suggests "stranger" means "classmate I don't really know very well". And at the higher end of the age range, we have people who don't really draw a line between "online" and "real" friends, and who quite likely have attended at least one online-community-specific gathering (such as a Fark Party or the like).
Nothing but FUD for parents.
Oh Yeah? I met MY wife on the Arpanet! Beat that!
I met My wife on a system of towers that relayed messages through semaphore.
Play Command HQ online
BIOS is a nice protection for, maybe, a 6 year old. By the age of 9 I had read my motherboard manual back to front, and figured out that unplugging the computer and popping out the CMOS battery would 'soft reset' the BIOS to default. Then i could get to the 2nd hard drive full of computer games.
If you leave an intelligent child alone long enough without supervision, there is no telling what they'll figure out. I suspect on a macro-level this is part of the challenge as a parent... making life difficult enough for the kids to slow them down, but also not constricting them so much that they emotional on intellectually suffocate.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"