The irony isn't lost on me here - I'm a writer on the Internet, and I get to tell all the folks who run around running down the Internet that somebody just shot a clip full of holes in their argument.
The number one danger to our kids isn't the Internet. It's themselves.
The Internet Safety Technical Task Force, formed by the attorneys general in forty-nine states in cooperation with Myspace, Facebook and a number of other Web companies, found kids who surf the Web are at a much lower risk for sexual predators than often reported. Of the kids who did report any type of sexual advances on the Internet, forty-eight percent of those advances reported in 2000 were made by other kids. In 2006, the number was forty-three percent of sexual advances made by kids under the age of eighteen.
Only nine percent of kids who reported having been solicited sexually on the internet in 2006 were actually approached by an adult over the age of twenty-one.
Interesting to note, the report also correlates the online risk to that of kids who are at a heightened risk off of the computer with those at a lower risk off the computer, noting, "Those who are most at risk often engage in risky behaviors and
have difficulties in other parts of their lives."
It only stands to reason - kids who have it ingrained in their heads by their parents not to give out personal information to a stranger at the mall or walk into a dark alley when they're out with their friends would be more likely to be more cautious online, not giving out that same personal information or agreeing to meet with someone in off-line in a private place. As a parent, you have to be able to tell if your kid is a risk taker in a real life, and have suspicion they would live a virtual life on the edge as well.
This is the kind of news I like to see - and not only because I'm a parent. As a teenager, I met the (then teenage) guy who would one day become my husband. It's our dirty little secret! But we were also both teenagers and cautious (by the time we met in person, he was an adult, and he still brough his dad!), and neither of us ever saw anything un-toward - at least not anything we can remember. If some creepy guy talked to me on the internet, I ignored him.
What has made the internet so scary for parents? I'd wager the bet it isn't the teeny, tiny hint of a possiblity that there's a sexual predator out there. It's one less place parents can get to. It's one more time they have to let loose the reins and hope their kids have listened to all they've taught them. And they can't sneak into their rooms and slip their hands under the bed in search of a diary or root around in the drawers for the hidden pack of cigarettes.
This report proves teaching your kids to act appropriately in life and online is all you can. Otherwise, they just might put pics of themselves tea-bagging a guy friend . . . and you'll be hiding your head in shame.
Image: Daily Mail
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