I spend a lot of time on the Internet researching
popular sites and I notice a very disturbing trend: parents have given their children free reign
over the Internet. It has been said that
in the 60s and 70s, the television was used by busy parents as a
babysitter. Well, now in the 21st
century, the Internet has taken over that function. The difference between the television and the
Internet is that the television didn’t have the capability to try to lure
children away from home. Sure, there
were interactive shows like Winky Dink, where a child could put a clear vinyl
sheet over the television screen and connect the dots to draw the item that
Winky needed to save the day, but Winky Dink never talked one on one to any
child. Not so with the Internet. This leads to the question, “Parents: Do you
know who your children are chatting with on-line?”
With children getting their own computers and
laptops at younger and younger ages, there should be rules set and followed for
the use of this equipment. The main rule
should be that no child under the age of 16 should have a web-cam/Internet
equipped computer in his or her room. I
find it unbelievable that parents who will not allow their young children to
walk to school alone will allow them to wander freely around the Internet. One of the sites that tweens and young teens
seem to be latching on to is Omegle.
Parents, beware!
Omegle is an unmonitored site that was started on
March 25, 2009 by then 18 year old Leif K-Brooks. Within a month of the start date, Omegle had
in excess of 150,000 users each month.
The site was set up to be an anonymous chat site where strangers who
would never otherwise have an opportunity to meet, could chat on-line. The site is open to anyone without the need
to register and there is no cost for its use.
Sure, there is a disclaimer that a user must be 18 years old to chat,
but, as we all know, anyone can be any age they want to be on the
Internet.
In the beginning, the site was text chat only. Now, it offers both text and video chat. Kids and chatting with strangers via text is
a nightmare in itself, but when you add video to the mix, results can be
disastrous. A very public instance of
the dangers of video chatting with strangers is the story of Amanda Todd, a
Canadian teenager who committed suicide in October 2012. When Amanda was 13 years old, she discovered
video chat and loved that males of all ages would comment about her
beauty. During one of her chats, a male
told her that she was gorgeous and wanted to see more of her. He convinced her to show her breasts on
camera. This person took a screenshot of
the video and spread it all over the Internet.
