Why Don't Parents Care About Online Safety?

Blake Johnson

April 23, 2015

 

 

                                        Why Don't Parents Care About Online Safety?

 

 

In class we talked about the many dangers of being online. Going online makes yourself susceptible to false projected personas by others as well as scams that target people not adequately familiar with how to avoid them. Every online threat becomes magnified when dealing with children as children are much more capable of being influenced than adults and less knowledgeable of when things don't seem quite right. The article by Diana Graber asks "Why don't parents care about online safety". She begins by referencing a particular case in which children were taken away from the custody of parents after multiple negligent acts in which they left their children unattended. The Maryland couple's actions are related to how society differs in reactions versus online and offline care taking of children. "How is it that a society so protective of children offline has left them largely unsupervised online?” Usage online have developed to the point that being online is a completely essential and important aspect of human life. Wouldn't it be logical to treat this up and coming new aspect of life with the same intensity that we place on offline safety? Social networking are one of the biggest problems when talking about the safety of children online. Social networking allows people to project only their best qualities as well as false qualities about themselves through selective self-presentation. Social networking cannot be wholeheartedly trusted as the mode for communication is the easiest and most conducive to deception and lies.

The article then goes to express possible reasons for why adults seem to allow children so much freedom in going online. While at the same time, the author examines why parents don't set as many barriers, rules, and surveillance on children when they're online. The first answer she come up with is the line between monitoring and spying. Parents of course don't want to come across to their children that they are spying on them. "Most parents don't want to spy on their kids and many who do lack the strong stomach, thick skin and discipline required to wade through the icky stuff kids say to get to the stuff that could cause permanent harm," says Bob Dillon of Artimys Language Technologies. There are differences though between mild-monitoring as well as hardcore "total spyware". These differences are the necessity to detect only the most meaningful threats to children. More parents should focus on gaining some type of mild-monitoring type of surveillance for their children online. Total spying isn't necessary and hurts the relationship of the children and their parents. But surveillance to at least some degree is necessary otherwise without monitoring children roam freely and open to various threats that they are more than likely unprepared for. Diana talks about how of course children hold expectation of some level of privacy. This is a fair expectation for anyone to have. But it's up to parents to acknowledge and respect that expectation while mutually making sure of their children's online safety.