Front Page

Benefits

Risks

Where is the Internet used?

Who are they with?

What do they do?

Dangers

Protection or Freedom?

Through a child's eyes

Section 2: Education

 Where is the Internet used?

Children and young people use the Internet in many places, including:

•    In school (where the content is probably filtered)

•    At home or a friend’s (do you know if it is filtered?)

•    At a library, Internet café, youth centre, etc (may be filtered)

•    On a personal device, perhaps in a pocket (probably unfiltered)

 

 

The arrival of handheld computers, phones, mp3 players and video players are opening up a whole new area of use. Young people can now be online in a range of new places, such as:

•    in school but independent of the rest of the class

•    in their bedroom

•    in a park

•    at a bus or on a bus stop . . . etc.


It’s important to realise that isolation has become a thing of the past. Technology allows young people to be in touch with their friends and classmates more or less 24 hours a day by text, in chatrooms, on social networking sites or in virtual worlds.

Even handheld games such as the Nintendo DS now have online games where children as young as 8 years old may be engaging in competitive or collaborative games with thousands of other people across the world.

It’s easy to see this as a threat but the vast majority of people are decent human beings. This applies in the real world as well as the virtual and in both places we need to do two things:

•    Identify and harness the benefits

•    Educate youngsters as to the dangers and teach them how to recognise risk and keep themselves safe

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