Thanks to Amy for giving me some feedback regarding my blog. Honestly, I was not fishing for comments, although they are nice, I was just out of ideas. I don't want to bore you all by posting the same thing over and over. As expected, Amy said that she skips over my sports postings. They should really decrease after the NCAA tourney is over. After that, I could care less about sports. (I hate baseball. Do they really need to play 5000 game per season?) One quick sports note, OSU won their basketball game last night and advance in the tournament. Yippie!
Amy's comment and the local radio station's website gave me an idea fot my next posting:
The internet. Is it just me, or does the internet scare the bejezzes out of you? Actually, that question is aimed more towards parents. On one hand, the net is wonderful and amazing. Want a gift for someone, but don't have time to run to the store? Buy a gift card that you can print out or a gift that can be delivered to your home. Want to test a new album before buying it? Listen to it on ITunes or Napster. Want to research something for school or something like a trip? Any information that you may want is at your finger tips. Basically, it can be a very cool thing.
Why does it scare the bejezzes out of me? Because I have kids. Why, you ask? The first thing that comes to mind is the Dateline stings on TV 'To Catch a Predator." If you've missed it, the cops set up stings to catch pervs trying to have sex with a teen girl. SinceI have a little girl, I fear the time when she is wanting to be in a chat room. There are SO many pervs out there and the internet makes it SO easy to gain access to children.
The second reason is something that I touched on just a little bit ago. The most viewed picture that I have on my Flickr page is one of Gabriel. I see that it have been looked at 34 times and wonder why. I don't even know 34 people that would want to see my pictures. Mona touched on it in a comment on the post when se said that a picture of her pregnant friend was linked to a sex-type web page. I think pregnant women are cute, but to take a picture off of someone else's baby belly and liking it to an adult oriented site is a little sick. You can also find innocent pictures of little girls in swim suits at the beach that some perves like to adult type sites. Now, I like girls in swim wear, but there has to be a line that you just can't cross. The thought of someone looking at my little girl like that make me a little sick and a lot angry.
Finally, the final reason that the internet scares me is that there is really nothing to prevent children from viewing sites that they shouldn't. The first thing to pop into my mind is nudity sites. The local radio station has a web-cam so you can view the shenanigans in the studio. You are supposed to be 18. Yes, there is a prompt that asks how old you are (so I've heard) but it doesn't take a genius to fake your date of birth. I guess it is not the worst thing in the world for a teen kid to see nekked pictures, I know I saw[pictures of nude girls as a young teen, but there is some pretty gross and intense images out there (like gross and gory things along with gross sex stuff). If you haven't noticed, there is alot of trash on the internet and kids are all about checking out trash. Another child-unfriendly site is the Heineman's Winery site. I know that I have posted thatit is good stuff, and it is, but there is nothing to check the age of the buyer. All you need is a credit card to have cases of wine mailed to your house. I had a credit card my freshman year of college (I was 18 or 19). You know there are kids out there that have no problem lifting their parent's credit card to order online. I don't know how you would be able to prevent under aged kids from buying wine online, other than stopping all online sales.
What do I do? I just don't let Noah use the internet without supervision. I could add parental blocks, but there are ways around them and they are irritating when you don't need them. I know that may make me look like a hard ass, but there are some trust issues in our house. The home computer is in my office and I don't like kids in my office unsupervised. I don't want to air the family's dirty laundry, so I won't get into why. I may buy another computer for the kids to use and add parental controls for the internet. Not sure though.
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5 comments:
Sheesh!! Sorry about this post. I realy got on my soap box, eh? Didn't mean to go on for so long.
I know what you mean about the Internet being scary for kids. This has been a problem in K-12 schools, too. But since I've worked in education for so long, I've seen a bunch of software out there that controls what kids can and can't see or do. Net Nanny is a big one. You install it, you set up how controlled you want it to be and there you have it. Most K-12 schools have something like this in place. Maybe if it's not too expensive you can buy it and some peace of mind. :)
Don't worry too much about what the people like. They'll skip over stuff they're not interested in and get to the stuff they do like. If it's all one subject they don't like, then you're in trouble. :)
What is the entire content of my blog is topics they don't like?
Honestly, I will post whatever comes to mind at the time. I do this as much for myself as I do for my friends. I was pretty much vamping for the last post.
I think I may end up getting an e-machine for the kids. Something that they can use for school and games. Net Nanny, or something like that is a good idea. I think you can set parental controls on most computers now too.
NO KIDDING!!!!! The internet freaks me out also! We will only have one computer in the house which will be at the desk in the kitchen. Emma will not be allowed to use my space and her computer time will be limited and supervised. She can email all the friends she knows personally and she can IM all the people she knows personally. Blogs we will have to discuss when the time comes. The way some people defend the freedom of speech pisses me off! Come on do you think our founding fathers thought there would be porn on the web? Sexual predators on the web? They would have hung such people. The TV is heavy regulated with regarding sex why can't the internet? There are movies out there for the people who want it. Why does it need to be on the web? I am not against freedom of speech unless it harms our youth. If I find a magazine under my son's mattress. I am not going to freak out and take it away. I will just have a little conversation one day about respecting women. I won't embarrass him and wave it under is face and yell at him for being a pervert. But, if he or she is cruising the internet for porn then we will have issues. I worry about what will happen when they go to their friends house? All you can do is try to install good values and morals and hope they carry them with them when you are not around. What about that guy up in MI that had a home daycare and sexual abused over 20 kids? That is one reason I stay at home.
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