The Effects Of Internet On Children And Young People

Follow membership restrictions- It is observed that despite social networking websites state minimum age restrictions most of the children have a membership account for these sites at very early age. For e.g. for Facebook or skype account registration the child needs to be minimum 13-years-old. But children aged 8-11 also have these accounts.

2.3.2 Describe the risks and possible consequences for children and young people using the internet, mobile phones and other technologies.

Even with the dangerous developments in social media over the past several years, many parents have chosen to allow their children to use these sites despite age restrictions. There are three reasons to argue for age restrictions on social media sites: lack of supervision by parents, targeting of children by pedophiles, and the prevalence of children falsifying their age. The ability of pedophiles to conceivably target children with social media proves that this is an issue that parents need to examine so that they may better protect their children. The threat from pedophiles causes an enormous problem for millions of children on social media sites. Unfortunately, Western Daily Press states that “Pedophiles can get away with grooming young teenagers on social media sites.” My essay will argue that age restrictions need to be in place, and additional regulations should ensure that law enforcement agencies have the tools required to supervise underage children 's use of social media, including Facebook and Twitter. Quoting from Business Wire, “three out of four parents feel that social network sites are not protecting children.” According to Irish Independent, “four out of ten children falsify their age” when using social media. I will also argue that additional research on this topic can be used to raise the awareness of parents, and can also help to alert the children themselves to the danger. My essay will also examine questions, such as: How can social media sites protect

1.1 Identify the current legislation, guidelines, policies and procedures of safeguarding the welfare of children and young people

Email – If children have email accounts they could come across files of people they don’t know and they may inadvertently open a virus or an inappropriate image.

Communication with Children and Young People (including the Use of Technology) : Communication between children and adults, by whatever method, should take place within clear and explicit professional boundaries. This includes the wider use of technology such as mobile phones text messaging, e-mails, digital cameras, videos, web-cams, websites and blogs. Adults should not share any personal information with a child or young person. They should not request, or respond to, any personal information from the child/young person, other than that which might be appropriate as part of their professional role. Adults should ensure that all communications are transparent and open to scrutiny.

By restricting access and deterring inappropriate use. Children and young people still seem to experience some possible risks. Such as, contact with people not known to them and cyber-bullying. Which emphasises just two safeguarding issues derived from the national concerns highlighted from the e- safety policy. Therefore, to give a fuller picture of safeguarding issues more research would be beneficial. However, as stated by EUKGO (2014) not all contact young people have with people not already known to them is bad.so by restricting a child’s use of communication sites could result in lost opportunities for children and young people to socialise. Therefore, as suggested by Byron, (2014) approaching on-line risks the same as offline risks will take into consideration the bigger picture of how the internet affects the child when they are on-line and off line.as the quote from the 12 year old girl showed, in the EUKGO 2014 “It’s easier to say horrible stuff about people on [the Internet]. It got really horrible in Year 10. Lots of people were being bullying over [the Internet]. It gets brought into school. When friends do this, it’s horrible. It makes you really upset. You don’t want to go into school

Risks of accessing inappropriate information. There is a high risk of children accidentally accessing inappropriate or even pornographic materials, when searching for information online. Children and young people must be supervised when using computers in school to minimise the risks even though the computers may have firewalls already in place. Its essential children are aware of the risks and of ways to protect themselves. They should also know how to report things they may come across.

Child sexual grooming has become one of the major concerns today. Child grooming begins when the offender’s premediated behaviour towards their victim intends to gain the child’s trust (AIC 2008). Once a trust relationship is formed, the offender then introduces the sexual element into their relationship. Moreover, anonymous nature of cyberspace facilitates the process of grooming for sexual predators as it assists victims in making judgements about people they communicate with. While legislative approach can be helpful way of keeping children safe in cyberspace, it is not enough to cause a recognisable reduction in child grooming statistics. Therefore, this review aims to discuss various non- legislative approaches outlined by Choo (2009) such as the initiatives of social networking sites and financial services, as well as evaluating the efficiency of reporting and monitoring systems to deal with online child exploitation.

“This legislation grew out of the fact that by 1998 roughly ten million American children had access to the Internet, and at the same time, studies indicated that children were unable to understand the potential effect of revealing their personal information online and parent failed to monitor their children’s use of the Internet.” (Koby)

Internet safety has been an extensive issue for children and adolescents since accuse to the Internet has become readily available in homes. With Internet use increasing at such rapid rates and a large proportion of adolescents using the Internet daily, the awareness of Internet safety should be addressed. The term Internet safety can be defined as “the knowledge of maximizing an individuals safety to private information, and self protection from using the Internet”. The impact and influence that the Internet has on adolescent life is far-reaching and research findings by Norris (2007) indicate that one-quarter of the American youth that go online at home, do so in the privacy of their rooms. Additionally, with the recent trend of wireless connections there has been a profound expansion in private Internet usage. The diverse means by which adolescents are using the Internet has become coupled with inherent risks of unsupervised and uneducated use.

The time in which children spend on the computer/tablet will be limited. I will also discuss with the children about the importance of keeping safe online, not forwarding on chain letters, not talking to people they don’t know, not giving out personal information that could enable people to identify them, to tell me if they are worried about anything and to never arrange to meet anyone they have spoken to online.

Some parents are not aware of dangers of internet that brings to their children particularly making friends through internet. For example, their children might get cheated with someone else on internet and their children will not tell what happen to them when they encounter danger. According to BBC News, a 47 year old man defrauded a 13 year old girl online and asked to meet face to face. Luckily, the girl’s mother found out beforehand or else her daughter might be in danger. From this news, we can see that there internet friends are not always honest and they are more likely to consider as un-trustful strangers. Therefore, parents should concern more about their children, teach them about the dangers of making friends on internet, and avoid them from going out with a stranger.

The Internet provides access to all kinds of content at the click of a mouse - but not all of that content is suitable for children and young people to see. While you may have the appropriate parental controls set up on your computer your child may still be able to access inappropriate material if someone in their social networking circle makes it

2. Invisibility: No need to worry about how you look when chatting with someone online;