The Internet is an immense database that provides users with a tremendous amount of information on research, commerce, and entertainment. Unfortunately, as the internet keeps advancing, online predators continue to become more successful in what they do. The internet is an ideal network for pedophiles to pursue their interests and fixations with young children. It enables them to locate and interact with adolescents more rapidly than ever before. Although the idea of pedophiles luring children in on the internet is a horrifying image, it is happening. It is through the internet’s easy accessibility that children continue to become vulnerable to these internet predators while engaging in social networking sites.
With a simple click of a mouse, children of all ages can engage in a variety of chat rooms. As reported in MSNBC live, “Instant messaging on the computer has become the new phone for kids today. Children spend hours chatting online with their friends, and sometimes with strangers” (Hansen, 2004). Although these chat rooms are advertised as harmless communication networks designed for our youth to make new friends, there is actually no way of knowing whether a child is chatting with a 13 year old girl of a 43 year old man. According to one recent study, “one in five children will be approached by a sexual predator within in the next year; a predator who may try to set up a face-to-face meeting” (Hansen, 2004). It is this kind of instant messaging that is becoming one the internet’s greatest dangers.
Many teenagers are extremely powerless when it comes to instant messaging and online chat rooms. Although they may be aware of the dire consequences that come with talking to strangers while browsing the web, many do not ...
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Works Cited
Hansen, C. (2004, November 11). MSNBC. Retrieved November 16, 2009, from Dangers Children Face Online: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6083442
Mitchell, M. (2006, February 13). Search Warp. Retrieved November 17, 2009, from How to Protect Your Children from Online Predators: http://searchwarp.com/swa40220.htm
Online Predators: Help Minimize the Risk. (2009). Retrieved November 16, 2009, from Microsoft: http://www.microsoft.com/protect/parents/social/predators.aspx
Talbot, D. (2009, January 14). Don't Blame the Internet. Retrieved November 16, 2009, from http://www.technologyreview.com/web/21963/?a=f
Walsh, S. (2009, October 13). Shields Up!: Protecting Yourself from Online Predators. Retrieved 2009 17, November, from Gadget Tell: http://www.gadgetell.com/tech/comment/shields-up-protecting-yourself-from-online-predators/
Online predators, pornography, drug trafficking, piracy, and hate sites are just some of the dangers that a child can face on the internet. The article “The Undercover Parent” by Harlan Coben states that parents should use spyware to monitor their children. Coben argues that parents should be able to know what is in their children’s lives. he believes that spyware can prevent children from being targeted by internet predators on social networking sites and even prevent children from being cyber bullied. I agree with Coben’s claim that parents should consider using spyware as a protection for their teens online. There are many possible dangers facing children on the internet and it is essential that parents install spyware.
Social networking sites leave opportunities for vulnerability, however, I don’t believe many youths are an easy target. Using ethos, pathos and logos individuals can create their own reality to relate to the internet world who they think are and how they wish to be seen. In mediated publics such as Facebook and Instagram, the user has complete control of his or her profile and is the only one who can allow content about his/herself to be shared. It is my personal belief that as technology has evolved many people have taken to fabricating some truths here and there and omitting details to give an ideal representation of who they are without incriminating themselves or leaving themselves vulnerable for mistreatment. The fantasy of what is or could be is more desirable than reality. In the past few years, privacy settings have been adapted to cover the growing technological advances to keep users safe from online predators.
Tears begin to fall down a child’s face. Her body goes into shock out of fear. Her mother warned her about watching inappropriate content, and there it was, right on her computer screen. This could not have happened though. All she was doing was casually browsing the internet before a pop-up appeared. Although it may seem hard to believe, the major cause of events such as this is the lack of censorship on the internet. Internet censorship relates to the removal of offensive, inappropriate, or controversial content published online. The current problem with the internet is that there are few restrictions on what can be published or viewed. Several sites on the internet only offer a warning about inappropriate content that can easily be bypassed by agreeing to the terms. Other websites provide access to private or military information. More dreadfully, however, are websites that use their explicit content as a promotion. These factors bring the conclusion that anybody of any given age can view and publish inappropriate or dangerous content. The current problems with the internet serve for clarification as to why the United States should create a nonpartisan assembly to censor the internet in order to protect its citizens from the mental, emotional, and physical harms the internet creates.
Kaitlin Poling Dr. Payne ENGL 103-025 15 March 2017 The Online Stalker An Annotated Bibliography Davies, Dave, et al. “Tracking the Companies that Track You Online.” Tracking the Companies that Track You Online, National Public Radio, 19 Aug. 2010.
"A Parent's Guide to Internet Security." FBI. FBI, 03 June 2005. Web. 16 Oct. 2014.
One of the main concerns in the world with the problem of child pornography is the new and improved online chat rooms. “As the world wide web becomes progressively easier to navigate, computer costs plummet and technology proliferates, and the intimate chat rooms of the internet become progressively more user-friendly and accessible to juveniles, serious problems are bound to occur” (Schultz 1). The problems in this topic of discussion are gradually increasing more and more each day. One of the main reasons for these problems increasing every day is the increase of technology in the society nowadays. The article, “On-line Vigilantes Hunt Pedophiles” states how catching predators in online chat rooms is really like and what the consequences are for the crimes (Schultz). The internet task force, also known as the Vigilante Website Perverted Justice, is able to catch these juveniles and criminals, such as criminal Ray Dooley. The officers in the internet task force faked to be a young fourteen-year-old girl, Rachel of Harper Woods and caught the man on sight of the crime, when trying to meet up with Rachel for sexual intercourse. I...
Dean, Katie. "The Epidemic of Cyberstalking." Wired News. May 1, 2000. http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,35728,00.html (April 24, 2002).
If not used appropriately and responsibly, the internet can be a dangerous place for children if they get cyberbullied, exposed to inappropriate content, or lured into a trap. If a child has not been properly informed about the lack of safety in the internet, they may find themselves virtually talking to strangers. These strangers could try to get their personal
As technology advances, parents have an even more challenging responsibility, to protect their adolescents from the criminals and pedophiles on the internet. Once on the internet, one is always in danger of being monitored by these criminals and pedophiles by the use of spyware. Spyware is a software used to log every single step someone can take while on the computer, such as a child, which could be argued as an invasion of privacy or parental responsibility. Parents have the ability to use this software so they can “monitor” their kids, but is it the right thing to do? Parental monitoring is a highly controversial topic today because of the two conflicting sides of whether spyware is a parenting tool used to keep kids and teens safe online, or a deep invasion of privacy and a violation of trust. Although there are many predators online that can physically and emotionally hurt the youth, parents should not monitor their adolescents by the use of spyware, because it is extremely harmful to their relationships and they are also harming their child by not letting
Generally, social networking provides online sexual predators with an easy gateway to youths. Users of online social media services tend to share copious amounts of personal information on online profiles, these same users control who can or cannot see their information by utilizing privacy settings. The problem with these “privacy settings” is that they are often hard to manipulate, leaving a multitude of online profiles vulnerable to often explicit offers from online sexual predators. Lacking the ability to protect their information properly, users are in jeopardy of being contacted by sexual predators. In fact, “[d]uring the years prior to the explosive expansion of social networks, most online sexual predators attempted to contact youths through chat rooms and message boards. In recent years, however, predators are increasingly targeting minors over social networking services”, showing that social networking directly puts youths in peril (Guo, 626). This sheds light on the fact that social networking is basically a way to herd youths and display them ...
This world has become immersed in online media from socializing on networking sites to seeking information on search engines. People of all ages have become reliant on online media, but the most engaged users are the younger, more easily impacted generations. Although there are many positive uses for online media, there are many negative uses as well. Unfortunately, it is all too easy for these negative effects to impede upon the perceptions of adolescents. Some countries have been trying to reduce this effect by expelling the inappropriate content of online media ("Influence on Children Media...”). However, in the United States, children are thrown in the waves, expected to stay afloat in this massive sea, but many are being dragged under the surface by the nefarious temptations media creates. Content that is not appropriate for the young, growing minds of children are easily accessible; a myriad of devices may be used to access this material, all at the click of a button. Without adult content filters on online media, adolescents of various ages are exposed to dangerous conceptions. A world of pornography, violence, and public humiliation lay in the user’s fingertips.
There are reports of sexual predators online which is of grave risk to the students online. Due to the anonymity of the Internet in forums and chat room there are persons whose may focus is to lure children into their web of deception. Students have to be informed and encouraged about the friends they chose on these sites.
Many children have access to the internet and are able to search up anything on Google. As with any type of media, there are positive effects and negative effects. Some of the negative effects of the internet for children are that ,since, children and adolescents are more or less technologically savvy than their parents, they are able to search about just about anything and and talk to just about anyone on the internet, this can lead to some very dangerous situations. According to the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, “89% of adolescents report using a computer, 61% report “surfing the net,” and 14% report seeing something that they do not want their parents to know about.” (Villani, 2001) 14% of adolescents reported seeing something that they did not want their parents to know about, this shows how unsupervised the internet is and shows how the internet can lead adolescents to become secretive and , maybe, even violent. Again, this leads to deviant behavior that the child learned from the internet. In addition, according to the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, “... a profile of the recent school killers, noted that almost all were computer-savvy and frequented sites where they could obtain violent, anarchist-oriented material.” (Villani, 2001) This shows that websites that have violent material on the
Haley, Jacqueline. "Anonymity of Cyberstalkers: The Cyber-Watchdog's Tough Collar." Georgia State University College of Law May 2001.
In the twenty -first century, teenagers live in a life of social networking and life’s online. It’s hard to believe how much the world has changed over the decades, especially in technology. Technology helps people to contact relatives and friends from long distance more easily and conveniently. People can now talk to each other from everywhere in the world simply through chat and video calls. By time, internet connections have spread throughout households and social networking such as Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram has increased gradually. However, the internet and several modern technologies have wasted many times and has hurt the society. Social media plays such a big role in people’s lives that some people couldn’t even imagine