Internet Safety

[Bjam]

So y'know the big MySpace scandal? Kids are being whorey and meeting people off of MySpace and getting raped or whatever.

We had a big assembley at my high school today on how the Internet is the devil and everyone on it is trying to lure you into having sex and how you should not give a single piece of information about yourself out online. Because the internet is evil. And you'll never get into college because they'll look at your MySpace or Xanga and see that you like the Goo Goo Dolls and oh hell no, you're not going to that college.

I think this is BS, personally. The internet is a spectacular thing, if you use it correctly, but the way that they're trying to teach kids internet safety is just stupid. Scare tactics don't work. The whole "That would never happen to me" mindset comes into play.

So, some of you have kids already(both young and old), some of you will have kids, some of you have younger people that you know through family or whatever. What are you going to teach your kids about the internet? Or what will you teach your kids? Will you let them go to events such as SFLs if they're a part of an online community?

I'm interested on people's thoughts, both parents and children. My family's pretty odd concerning the Internet, so I was interested from someones, uh, "normal" family's pov.

(I put this in politics, as I guess there's some debate about what you should do re. internet safety. Move if needed, dear admins)

[Denyer]

If it weren't for kids using the internet I'd never get laid.

[fodroy]

use a fake myspace name. i have my real name registered as klendakk hweel. and any employer that won't hire you because they didn't like your myspace is not an employer worth working for.

[Reist]

I'm pretty sure that if anybody had wanted to find me, they could have hacked all my info from the websites I use, so I think I'm pretty much safe as long as I never put a good looking picture of me up on the internet (as if I could get one of those anyway!)

[anti-m]

This is an interesting question Bjam. When I was growing up there was no Internet... but I do remember our schools hammering pretty hard on the whole "don't talk to strangers" thing. I think most folks will find that the majority of strangers you'll meet in the world bear you no ill will. "Don't talk to strangers" strikes me as not very good advice.

I'd like to raise a kid or two some day, and it is my hope that I'll be able to teach them to exercise some judgment about who they talk to both in the real world and on the Internet.

At least in theory, I'm not a big fan of restricting kid's access to the world. I think that it is better to equip kids with knowledge. Give them skills to handle and adapt to the big scary world... then set them loose.

So when do you turn 'em loose? It varies from kid to kid, and my sense is that it's a gradual process. I would hope to err on the side of trusting my kid's judgment.

I think it's also worth mentioning that it's OK to let your kids make mistakes. Most mistakes don't end tragically, and kids are resilient.

[All that said: When I was about 5 years old, some neighbor kids and I had these walky-talkies that could communicate on the same frequencies as truckers’ CB radios. One day, we actually managed to strike up a conversation with some random guy, and, even though we knew in the back of our minds that it wasn’t a good idea, we gave him our address. Next thing you know, this giant semi pulls up on our small suburban street. Fortunately, our parents were home, and the guy was actually completely flummoxed to find that he’d been summoned by a trio of 5 year olds. (I think he was hoping we were high school girls) So, there’s a stranger story that could have ended badly. (Please, fuel your paranoid fears, folks!) To my parents’ credit, they did not completely loose their minds or confiscate our walky-talkies. They simply had a serious discussion with us about the risks of what we did. And we didn’t make the same mistake again.]

Ahhh.... I can't resist this last cautionary tale:

If you google my name on the Internet, you’ll come up with several embarrassing hits in which I theorize on the exact lyrical content of the background vocal track to Jane’s Addictions’ “Three Days.â€

[blue]

stupid school assembly, telling all the teens who weren't in the know where to go to find sex.

next they'll be telling college kids not to go binge drinking at bars.

people, especially teenagers, love them some sex, and most of them like sex with people older than them more than sex with people their own age, but, uh, if it is anything like it was when i was in HS, age doesn't really matter. i wonder how many people were making out in the bleachers during that very assembly.

the basics of protecting yourself from weirdos apply in all walks of life, myspace is no different. and those basics are very important! so it is distressing to hear that useless mis/information was given at the seminar. complain and offer to host a useful one! meet people in groups, let people know where you're going, etc. it aint hard, unless your parents are fruits, which i guess most parents are, which is probably why high school kids are looking online for sex with old people in the first place instead of doing it on the lawn like normal teenagers.

[Bjam]

complain and offer to host a useful one!

Heh. See, I did that.

Me: So, it's awesome that ya'll are doing this, good job and whatnot, but seriously, no one's going to listen. They were laughing throughout the PSA's you showed. They don't think it can happen to them.
Guy: But it can.
Me: Exactly. But this scare tactic isn't going to work.
Guy: Oh, but, it does.
Me: ...Not to these high schoolers.
Guy: Well that's why we're doing these assembiles.
Me: But they won't work. At least not here.
Guy: THEY WORK! We've saved hundreds of kids lives! They haven't committed suicide because we came and saved them! And we arrrest dozens of creepy old men! And--
Me: Yeah. But my school isn't gonna listen. Why don't you give advice on how to be safe online rather than just not be online?
Guy: The internet is unsafe to anyone!
Me: ...
Guy: Are you on the internet?
Me: Yes.

Then I went on a rant about the good sides of the internet. When I mentioned about SongFight Lives I think the guy died a little inside.

I get they're trying to do a Good Thing. But seriously, bad way to go about it, for sure.

[fodroy]

bjam, you're essentially chatting and hanging out with creepy old men.

but i totally agree with your above arguments. is this some sort of group that goes from school to school talking about this stuff?

[Bjam]

Yeah, but you all make cool music. And, c'mon, it could never happen to me. (sarcasm, oh dear lord, sarcasm)

It's some local detectives or some such, part of PA's electronic crime against children or something like that department.

[Lyricburglar]

bjam, you're essentially chatting and hanging out with creepy old men.

Don't believe Bjam's "I'm a 16-year-old girl" crap.

She's a 45-year-old Federal policeman with a beer-gut trying to entrap us all...and I'm not going to fall for that again

[roymond]

In my day, there was this thing called "the street" that was really scarey and the old folks would whisper tales about kidnapping and bicycle acidents and exploading mailboxes. Well, I never was kidnapped, but I've had many bicycle acidents, and well, I heard from a friend who knows a guy that read somewhere about exploading mailboxes...look out for the street.

but I survived. We also owned a horse and when a truck would backfire a mile away, he would go nuts. And I dislocated my shoulder once. A neighbor got a concusion falling off him. And he ate someone's flowers when he got out of the pen. Look out for horses.

Last night my son stuck a screw in the ground hole of an outlet. It sparked and shorted, flipping the circuit breaker. Can I blame this on the internet? Cause that really fuckin scared the crap out of me! I am grateful we upgraded the electrics when we moved in and have circuits that perhaps saved a life. Are there circuit breakers ont he internet? Isn't that called education?

Its not unusual for outsiders to criticize and condemn things they don't understand. I've been traveling to Mexico lately...my mom is quick to mention the general lawlessness and danger lurking there. Like...ok, I live in NYC, mom...there have been some scarey headlines lately...exploading mailboxes not withstanding...

[Eric Y.]

the Internet is the devil and everyone on it is trying to lure you into having sex and how you should not give a single piece of information about yourself out online.

so probably the last thing you'd want to do is give a bunch of people you've never met your real name, pictures of yourself, your telephone number, AND invite them to a relatively private building near where you live at a specific time and date when you plan to be there?

[HeuristicsInc]

on the other hand, if you are going to meet a large group of strangers the best thing might be to bring your parents
-bill

[Mostess]

Scare tactics don't work.

Well, scare tactics certainly convince high schools to hire "The Internet Is The Devil, Inc." to give assemblies. So someone comes out ahead.

The tragedy, of course, is that those adults (as they did to me, and my parents before me) are slowly convincing you that they don't trust you, don't think you're smart, don't think you're intuitions are sharp enough to listen to reason. So you run to your internet message board friends to confide in them about how silly those real-life adults in your real-life community are acting. If they only knew, they'd pee themselves. And schedule another assembly, no doubt.

As the father of two little girls, all I can say is that I hope that 14 years from now I'll have the smarts and coolness to watch and help them participate in whatever weird technological new-and-scary thing that they love. So a big shout out to stueym! He deserves a hug.

That said, my two-year old loves the following web sites and requests them at story time:

The Witch's Stew, The Three Big Pigs, The Three Little Pigs, Three Billy Goats Gruff and a couple others.

So we'll see what happens. I mean, hopefully all these little lessons about Big Bad Wolves and Trolls will sink in. So when holographic virtual reality direct neuronal jack-in peer-to-peer dream sharing becomes hip, she'll be ready. 'Cause I sure as hell won't be.

[roymond]

Anticipating the birth of my first child, and not knowing the sex, I was secretly hoping for a girl. I know what boys do & couldn't imagine being the father of me during certain stages of my youth (my father was absent at that point, thankfully). Girls, now that was a big unknown (I have older sisters, but never knew many details about their real lives). I was basically more secure with the unknown challenges of raising girls than the known insanity of boys.

Now I'm rather excited about being able to share in my boys' discoveries (to a degree), including the internet and whatever is around when they gain access to such systems. I am trying to build a sense of exploration and experimentation that will allow them to safely pursue the cool and mysterious. I hope they'll have the same level of critical questioning you do, Bjam, and the confidence to hash out the issues rather than ignore them. Hell, the fact that schools stage these presentations shows they want discussion, so at least that's good. But if they aren't open to your responses and to learning from them then that would be the real problem.

[Dan-O from Five-O]

My eldest daughter turned 18 about 6 months ago. She'll be finishing up High School and running off to college next semester. (Big sigh) She's intelligent, well rounded, caring, loving and all the things you would hope your daughter would be. But's she's also young, somtimes naive, and like anyone who hasn't learned a lot of harsh reality lessons the hard way, potentially gullible. Mind you I didn't say she was gullible, just potentially. And that's what parents really worry about. The potential for bad things to happen. So we end up bugging our children with the all the stereotypical stuff parents have been bugging their kids with for years.

Look both ways before you cross. Come straight home from school. Buckle your seat belt. Call us if your plans change. Be home by curfew. No drinking. And yeah, be careful on the internet. It's an intrusion I guess because you can bank on the same response each time. "I know". Well yeah, but so do we.

We know about the kid that got hit by that car crossing the street. We know about that kid that never came home from school. We know about the guy who died in a car accident that didn't have his seat belt on. We know about the young woman who went to a party her parents had no idea about because her plans changed and she didn't call. She didn't make it home by curfew because the doctors at the hospital were treating her for alcohol poisoning. And we know about predators on the internet that do exist and do take advantage of someone's gullibility. Maybe each one of these things hasn't happened to us personally, but they do happen and it's a reality no decent parent ever wants to face and doesn't worry about. And it scares the hell out of us sometimes and makes us act irrationally. Or at least it seems irrational to the receiver of our constant annoying reminders.

But when we bug our children to follow these common sense precautions, we do it because we love our children and want the very best for them. We never want them to suffer the horrofic tragedies this world so regularly doles out.

And we do it because we all know the really smart guy who has absolutely no common sense.

Some of us have to work for him too. But we never tell him to look both ways.

Yeah we can be a pain in the ass. And far too often we don't give credit where credit is due, and it's a shame when we don't listen to smart young people like you Bjam. I like to think I'm not that way, and my daughter and I have great conversations that supports that. And I was strong and trusting enough to let her go to Panama City with her friends while I, her mother and our other 2 children went to Jacksonville for Spring Break. It wasn't easy, but I did it and we all survived. That experience should make (Big sigh) her going off to college a lot easier in August.

I don't know Bjam. It's not easy from either perspective. It's cliche, but someday you will understand that. Until you have children of your own, it's difficult to get someone to believe that. Parenting is hard, stressful and really easy to make mistakes at. That's probably why we do all of those annoying things. We're scared as hell we're going to make a mistake. But parenting is also very rewarding when you see the product of those efforts turn out so well.

But it didn't stop me from making sure my eldest daughter was covered with a blanket last night. It probably never will.
[/ parental rant]

[HeuristicsInc]

hey, that's maybe the best post i've seen from dan-o!
i mean, it's great.
parenting is scary!
-bill

[Dan-O from Five-O]

Thanks Bill. I'm just glad someone understood where I was coming from.

[HeuristicsInc]

well, i'm not sure i understand yet, since i haven't tried it... so far
-bill

[Caravan Ray]

Thanks Bill. I'm just glad someone understood where I was coming from.

Agreed - that was a fine post. I only have a 2-year-old at the moment - but the tiny little steps towards independence are already starting.

[Southwest_Statistic]

Hey Bjam.

You and me should meet tomarrow. In a dark ally in the bad side of town, just for laughs. Ya know what I mean? Sure you do...

XOOXOOX

[mkilly]

word, dan-o. I hope your daughter appreciates having a caring father such as she does.