Cyber safety

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Do you really know what your kids are doing online?

By Ann Douglas

Allyson Beaumont (not her real name) thought she was doing a pretty good job of monitoring her 12-year-old daughter Erin's online activities. She had placed the family computer in a high-traffic part of the house so that she could keep an eye on what Erin was doing online and she had made a point of alerting Erin to the hazards of giving out personal information to anyone she might meet in cyberspace. "I did pretty much everything the Internet safety experts recommended," Allyson recalls.

But then one night Erin got a phone call from a man whose voice Allyson didn't recognize. When she checked the call display on the family phone, she discovered that the call had come from New York City. As it turned out, Erin was talking on the phone with a man she had met online-a 21-year-old university student with whom she had been carrying on an online relationship for the previous eight months.

"I had no idea that this was going on until the telephone calls started coming," says Allyson. "But now, looking back, I can see that there were some warning signs that there might be some sort of problem. Erin always had multiple windows open on the computer, and she'd quickly flip windows every time I walked by. And she was in the habit of setting up new Hotmail accounts on a regular basis. A couple of times we found her on the computer at 3 a.m., posting to various rock music bulletin boards. We later found out that this was one of her key methods of corresponding with her online 'boyfriend.' We'll never know for sure whether this 'boyfriend' was an Internet predator who was grooming her for future abuse or simply a loser with no friends his own age, but either way the relationship that he chose to have with Erin was highly inappropriate. I'm sharing my story because I want other parents to realize that there's a lot more happening online than what meets the eye. Most parents just don't get it. They have no idea what their kids are really doing online.

Jane Tallim is probably one of the few Canadian mothers who isn't the least bit shocked to hear about Erin Beaumont's online adventures. In her work as the Internet and media education specialist for the Ottawa-based Media Awareness Network, she's pretty much seen it all. "Parents seem to forget that the Internet and adolescent hormones make a pretty potent mix. Kids know all about 'stranger danger' and the rules they're supposed to be following online, but once they hit the Internet, those adolescent hormones kick in and they can find themselves making some poor decisions.

Tallim was one of the lead researchers in a recent study involving more than 6000 Canadian students: Young Canadians in a Wired World. The study looked at the online habits of teens and pre-teens, more specifically what young people are doing online. Tallim and her fellow researchers found that there's a huge gap between what parents think their kids are doing while they're surfing the Net and what their kids are actually doing. Here are a few of the study's key findings:

• More than half of kids using the Internet report having received pornographic junk mail and almost one-quarter report having received pornography sent to them by someone they had met online. Boys were more likely than girls to have received such material.
• Almost one half of secondary school students report having been subjected to sexual advances from someone while online. Girls were more likely than boys to have received such unwanted attention.
• Chat room use is the norm for teens and pre-teens. Fifty-eight percent of 11 and 12 years olds, 70 per cent of 13 and 14 year olds, and 72 per cent of 15 to 17 year-olds admit to having used chat rooms.
• Boys are more likely than girls to visit private and adult-only chat rooms. Fifty-six percent of young people visiting these types of chat rooms are boys.
• One out of every four pre-teen and teen Internet users reports having been asked to meet face-to-face with someone they met online; and 15 per cent admit to having met face-to-face with at least one person they had met online. And, of the 15 per cent of respondents who did arrange for such a face-to-face meeting, 12 per cent said they had had a bad experience.

At the root of the problem is the fact that many kids mistakenly assume that they're completely anonymous while they're surfing the Net. They don't realize just how easy it is to link someone's e-mail address or online identity with a real person in the real world, says Tallim. "Kids are very naïve and trusting when it comes to this sort of thing.

If your head is spinning as you try to come to grips with the challenge of protecting your kids while they're online, you're certainly in good company. Most parents find the prospect rather daunting, according to Tallim: "It's a case of the TV generation meeting the Internet generation!" she quips.

According to Tallim, parents need to take steps to educate themselves about the hazards that their kids may face in cyberspace and to do what they can to try to protect their kids from the underbelly of the online world. That means keeping closer tabs on their kids' online activities and striving to be at least as Internet savvy as their kids: "Being in the know is a parent's best defense.

Further Reading: You can find out more about keeping kids safe online by visiting the Media Awareness web site: www.media-awareness.ca. You'll find a wealth of material on online safety, including the full results of the study described in this article: Young Canadians in a Wired World.

• jasmine | August 22, 2008 at 6:06 pm - §

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