Entries Tagged 'Parenting' ↓

YouTube is without a doubt one of the weirdest and wildest places on the web. Whether you’re looking for cartoons from the 1980s, crazy cat videos, or teenagers making homemade explosives, a quick perusal of YouTube will usually get you what you need. Of course, not everyone thinks that the wide world of web video should be so easily accessible. That’s why YouTube recently unveiled a new feature called “Safety Mode.”

According to the official YouTube Blog, Safety Mode can be turned on by scrolling to the bottom of any YouTube page. Once there, you will see the words “Safety Mode is Off.” Clicking on the text will allow you to turn the Safety Mode on for the remainder of your browser session. To keep Safety Mode in place on a more permanent basis, you have to log-in to your Google account. The following video explains the process in greater detail.

On its surface, the YouTube Safety Mode sounds good. Giving parents an easy tool to help filter what their kids find online is a smart move, and one that can help Google answer some of its critics in the government. However, when it comes to implementation, the Safety Mode falls short.

As explained in this article from ReadWriteWeb,

“the new ‘Safety Mode’ does little to prevent kids from seeing the content parents want to hide. Although once on it does a reasonably good job at filtering YouTube’s vast array of material, it’s only a button-click away from being turned off again. And if you think your kids can’t find the button in need of clicking then you just don’t know kids very well. If anything, today’s youngest generation of Internet users are more tech-savvy than their parents, often having to help mom and dad navigate around the Web, not the other way around.”

Even if a parent does log on to their Google account, to make the Safety Mode permanent, what’s stopping a child from logging onto the same account and undoing the setting. You could argue that a child may not know a parent’s password to Google, but that would assume that the parent logs out of Google every time he or she gets up from the computer. If you’re like me, you probably don’t log in and out of your Gmail account, you just have it open all day.

Furthermore, this assumes that a child YouTube user doesn’t have access to their own Google log-in. As the RWW article says, kids these days are extremely efficient web users. For YouTube to really limit access to inappropriate material, they would probably have to institute some heavier changes, which I’m sure kids would still be able to access given enough time and inclination.

The only truly effective form of “parental control” is actual parental control. As we shared in our article on Common Sense Social Networking Rules for Kids, the key to protecting kids online doesn’t lie solely in a software program, but in a parent’s commitment to establish reasonable rules about Internet use and fostering an open environment for education.

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In yet another story highlighting the tragic consequences of cyberbullying, a 15-year-old Massachusetts girl hung herself after facing psychological abuse and harassment from bullies in school and online. According to ABC News, Phoebe Prince, an Irish immigrant and new arrival to the small Massachusettes town, committed suicide in part because she “had been teased incessantly, taunted by text messages and harassed on social networking sites like Facebook.” The news of Phoebe Prince’s suicide comes not long after a number of other tragic teen deaths, including the suicide of a 13-year-old Florida girl who had been victimized in school for “sexting.”

It is unclear at this point whether any formal charges will be sought against the individuals who bullied the girl, but the district attorney covering the case has said that there is an “open investigation” in place. For many child advocates, this latest incident has renewed interest in the development of cyberbullying legislation, something that was first considered in 2008 following the suicide of teenager Megan Meier. In an editorial for the Boston Herald, Margery Eagan echos the call for more substantial punishment for cyberbullies.

From the article:

When South Hadley authorities find the girls who drove Phoebe Prince to take her own life, they should prosecute them.

Stop pretending they’re just cruel and nasty girls being girls. They’re criminal torturers.

Once upon a time, as the bullied among us know, the torment ended at our front door. We were safe at home, enclosed by four walls, relieved, at least until the next morning at school.

But in wired-up 2010, there is no escape. The taunts come right through the bedroom walls. South Hadley High’s principal said Phoebe Prince was targeted via texts on her cell phone and taunts on her computer and Facebook and other social networking sites. Her tormentors had access 24 hours a day.

While the development of anti-cyberbullying legislation may help states prosecute cyberbullies more severely, truthfully, there is no guarantee that it will reduce the number of  cyberbullying incidents. As we wrote last week, kids and teens spend nearly every waking hour using digital technologies. Spending free time online has become the de facto pastime of our nation’s youth. To this end, the most effective way to prevent cyberbullying is to have an active and ongoing dialogue with your children about their Internet use and to spend time monitoring their behavior on the web for any warning signs of possible abuse.

For more information on talking to your kids about their Internet behavior, along with other suggestions to help stop cyberbullying before it stars, check out our guide on how to recognize and prevent cyberbullying.

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How much time do you think kids aged 8 to 18 spend using electronic devices during the day? Five hours? Six hours? Try again. According to a new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation, kids and teens from the ages of 8 to 18 spend over seven and a half hours a day watching TV, surfing the web (on computers and from their mobile phones), or listening to music on digital media players.

When you take into account the time they spend texting or talking on their phones, the number blooms to a phenomenal nine hours of total time using electronic devices. This is a substantial increase from the last time the survey was conducted in 2005, when the total time clocked in at less than six and a half hours.

For a better understanding of how kids and teens are spending their time on electronic devices, check out the graphic below.

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According to the New York Times, “The study’s findings shocked its authors, who had concluded in 2005 that use could not possibly grow further, and confirmed the fears of many parents whose children are constantly tethered to media devices. It found, moreover, that heavy media use is associated with several negatives, including behavior problems and lower grades.”

A significant reason why the numbers have increased so much in such a relatively short period of time is the explosion of smartphones, which are capable of accessing mobile Internet, downloading music, streaming videos, in addition to texting and calling. Whereas previous generations would have been forced to curb their media consumption simply because they were not near a computer, kids today can be plugged in to the web literally 24 hours a day.

So what does this mean for parents? For one thing, it shows that parents must reconsider how they talk to their kids about using the Internet, and also that they should institute realistic limits on the amount of time their kids use certain devices. If you don’t know how to get started with laying down Internet rules, I recommend checking out our Five Common Sense Social Networking Rules for Kids.

Another thing that this study shows is that it is practically impossible for parents to monitor their kids’ Internet use all on their own. We know that most parents aren’t concerned about what their kids are doing online, so much as keeping them safe from online predators and cyberbullies. That’s why ReputationDefender created MyChild. When you can’t be there to keep an eye out for them, we can be there for you.

For more information on MyChild, please feel free to ReputationDefender a call today at 1-888-720-9980.

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Here at the ReputationDefender Blog, we’ve talked about the problem of sexting on numerous occasions. As more and more media attention has been shined on the issue, however, some are beginning to ask if people are missing the real point. In an editorial for the Boston Globe, Jesse Singal wonders whether an overblown reaction to sexting is masking the real problem related to sexting, which is the bullying that often accompanies it.

From the article:

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[AP Photo]

In a case that has rocked the midwestern city of New Berlin, Wisconsin, 19-year-old Anthony Stancl has pled no contest to two felony sexual assault charges stemming from an elaborate Facebook sex scam. According to the Associated Press, while in high school, “Stancl was accused of posing as a girl online and persuading more than 30 classmates into sending him naked pictures of themselves, then using the images to blackmail them for sex.” Stancl had faced 12 criminal counts with a maximum penalty of up to 300 years of incarceration. Currently, Stancl stands to face a maximum of 50 years in jail.

The first time I heard about this case was this past July via a chilling feature article by Michael Joseph Gross for GQ Magazine. I recall thinking at the time, “Why? Why would 30 teens send nude pictures of themselves to what is essentially a stranger?” Then, the answer occurred to me. They sent them because they’re teenagers. They are still developing emotionally. They are are still figuring out who they are and where they fit in in the world. In essence, they didn’t think it was a problem.

Obviously, they had no idea they were being lured into a trap by a sexual predator. They assumed that they were talking to a female student. Not just someone who liked them, but someone like them. There was a perception of safety. Sadly, it was all an illusion, and now the victims of these crimes may never fully regain the trust and intimacy needed to sustain healthy adult relationships.

The only takeaway from this sad and sordid case is that parents must take an interest in their child’s digital lives. If you do not recognize a threat, it is impossible to prepare for it. Social networking websites like Facebook and MySpace are not in and of themselves evil entities. They are neutral. The problems occur in how these websites are used and abused. Talk to your children about the web. Explain the issues and the things that they should be looking for. Don’t let their resistance keep you from identifying potential problems before they get too big for you to control. Remember, it is not about controlling your child’s life on the web, it’s about protecting them so that they can lead healthy and productive lives.

For more information on how to help your teens stay safe online, check out the Internet Keep Safe Coalition. Also, check back to the ReputationDefender Blog, or follow us on Twitter.

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