A new survey from the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, The National Poll on Children’s Health, has found that US parents rate Internet Safety as being a more serious health threat to children than school violence, sexually transmitted diseases, abuse and neglect.
Yes, the Internet.
No, I’m not kidding.
The survey found that Internet safety is a relatively new health concern amongst parents. Women were more likely to rate it as a big problem; 32% of women report Internet safety as a big problem compared with only 21% of men. Internet safety had no differences in proportion of concern by education status, income level or marital status.
You may well ask what this has to do with Web 2.0. The report notes: “state and federal legislators appear to have responded to public concerns about Internet safety for children, considering new legislation and issuing consumer alerts“.
The ongoing campaign to whip up hysteria around the risks for children in social networking by some segments of the media is clearly working.
If the obvious hysteria demonstrated in this survey, and indeed over the last 18 months through countless hours of negative press surrounding MySpace and many other social networking destinations translates to the ballot box, big Government is ready and waiting to impose a raft of legislative rules and regulations on a future generation of Silicon Valley social networking start ups. Rules and regulations that will have a cost in terms of compliance and implementation, taking money away from R&D and making the pursuit of success by any affected start up that little bit harder.
On one hand…
After reading the source I see that the concern is “Internet safety”, not Internet as a medium.
In other words, moms are very concerned about “Internet safety” for their kids. They’re not saying the Internet is all dangerous - just that they want their kids to have a safe Internet experience, and they set that as a very important goal.
And they’re probably more concerned about that than about sexually trasmitted diseases because they may think that their kids are well educated in that topic, therefore is not that big of a concern. Same for the other topics that rated lower…
That’s how I understood it, I may be wrong.. ?
RBA
there’s an internet outside of Web 2.0 and social networking?
I have a young boy and so far everything he does on the internet is done with me sitting next to him.
Parental supervision in the beginning is very important, a good foundation leads to a better building.
I’d say that’s a pretty sensational headline; and by sensational, I don’t mean great. According to the study parents are concerned about the safety of their kids on the Internet, not the Internet in general.
Duncan, you’re accusing “segments of the media” of fear-mongering and hysteria building. I’d say you’re just as guilty of that–just from the opposite point of view.
The University of Michigan Med School also needs to look at their website in Firefox - Yikes!
I agree with Scott - this isn’t a great piece of journalism for TC to be commenting on. It would be more of a story to explain how the poll results can be misconstrued to suit various agendas. Parents aren’t saying the internet is more of a risk to their children than school violence or STD’s.
Wouldn’t we get a more accurate picture by polling healthcare practitioners rather than parents? Otherwise it’s “Parents worry a lot about their childrens’ safety” rather than more informed opinion from professionals who are seeing the children affected.
As a former pediatric resident now turned Internist and Genetics fellow I have to say that I am not suprised by the headline.
Here are some more that I have balked at:
“Gene may cure cancer” (last year when results were found in mice)
“DNA mutation hikes heart attack risk” (just 3 days ago when t he risk wasn’t even as high as having a sibling who had a heart attack”
“Coffee is a killer” (written in 1999 when a study showed an increased heart attack risk with coffee)
The media has a wonderful way of hyping things, never explaining them well and then never getting in trouble for trying to peddle garbage.
We try to sort all of these out via blogs. Hopefully it is working. But not if we perpetuate the crap that the media publish. This is a great blog, don’t get me wrong. I love it and read it daily.
-Steve
http://www.thegenesherpa.blogspot.com
The governments legislation over the internet will always, i repeat, always be helplessly in vain. A bill meant to enforce any type of government control over the internet would be similar to passing a bill requiring sleeping or eating habits, regardless of what the government tries it will never succeed.
I read the other comments, and yeah, this is a weird topic for techcrunch to be reporting. And the emphasis of the article seemed to be more on continual coverage of an overall bullshit opinion.
But what i found most disturbing about the article is that it touches on something that everyone here should wake up and smell, and that’s government control. The fact that right now there are politicians that would prefer the internet be taxed, that would allow phone companies to charge money for bandwidth, that would like every website to have a parental advisory sticker placed somewhere on it, that would rather see the internet as a second form of television that the government could easily monopolize and control, rather than the largest beacon for freedom that has every been constructed (surpassing America, tenfold).
I’m sorry if that sounds a little crazy, but these things always strike me as important. I don’t know about you.
Lots of the blogosphere lives in denial of the big media and it’s interest in slowing the progress of social media and blogs. Nice viewpoint Duncan.
I don’t agree that this isn’t a topic TC should be commenting on - but I do think that it should have been focused on how (if at all) it is going to shape the business of social networking and what kind of impact it’s going to have on us, the people in the business. Duncan, you’re a great writer, but the articles I’ve read seem to write for the consumer - it’s mostly business people here, so it might help to write more that audience.
I personally think that what makes the internet unsafe for kids isn’t the predators online, because as somebody posts above, parents are monitoring more closely, etc., and so are kids. I think it’s moreso the bigger business of child pornography online and how parents and people are making a fortune sexually abusing little kids. I think the most regulation needs to happen there, because social networks are as safe, really, as any city in the country. If you wouldn’t let your nine year old walk around in NY alone, then you shouldn’t let him/her go unsupervised on the web.
We wouldn’t allow someone to set up a child porn shop in our neighborhood - it shouldn’t be allowed on the web.
@ david, I agree. Though I think more and more big media is starting to learn the ropes and some will prevail enough for them to get off our backs
Other headlines.
1) constant and prolonged states of partial dehydration is the leading cause of sickness in America (inlcuding Alzheimers)
2) Improper hand washing at restaurants is the top cause of food poisoning in America
3) stronger sentencing in child sodomy/abuse laws would lead to a significant downturn of incidents
The Internet will never be successfully controlled. The cat’s out of the bag. The genie’s out of the bottle. The horse’s out the barn, or whatever metaphor you like because the Internet is about connectivity and technology will find a way to connect people. You might regulate terrestrial lines, but then some enterprising companies will simply contract with countries to send up a satellite.
@ Jerome, you’re underestimating the lucrative business opportunity in creating technologies to control it.
VoIP blocking is and should be considered wrong, but there were companies offering software to do it at last year’s VON.
I don’t think it’ll be controlled, but I do think there will potentially be standards and regulations formed on things that cause problems (though not for a few years). I would think companies will eventually comply as some of it will cover their asses.
I’ve read the study and Internet safety is at #7 in the top 10. If you want to analyse results, go from top-down not the other way around.
Your title states “…more dangerous than school violence and sexually transmitted diseases[#9] for children.” I think that children are not [God forbid] sexually active as teenagers or adults for that matter for them to contact STDs nor they go to school with guns [#10] in their lunchboxes.
I’m a proponent of internet safety, who wouldn’t be? However, it’s up to us if we want the internet to rule our lives.
I’m all for the federal legislators requiring parents to provide more supervision for their children when they use the Internet.
@patricia,
Yes, I agree there is interest/opportunity to opress information as well, but I still believe governments are fighting a losing battle there, as an example the case of Arab people and Al Jazeera.
I think that it may be time to try and step in but in most cases it seems to be that parents are pushing this responsibility off on other people. In reality, parents are the ones who need to be watching where their kids are going on the internet - it is not that difficult.
Great article Duncan
It just shows that the Propaganda tool known as FEAR is alive and well.
Just remember this, we’re born with two fears.
The fear of falling.
The fear of loud noises.
All other fears are learned.
This study shows the media has sufficently scared the daylights out of parents.
Watch Noam Chomsky’s: Imperial Grand Strategy (2006), you just might see things in a light.
Wow, some people are really stupid…
something worse than “fear” is the exploitive burying of one’s head in the sand about dangerous things like online predators, influence of virtual violence, and anti-Cluetrain thinking in general.
as a faux congressman, I hope you’ll not veto my new bill to force all violent video games to inflict the pain the player inflicts on others, to inflict this pain and suffering on the game player, via haptic immersive telepresencing, punishment gloves, etc.
For any of the lowly commentors to dictate to TC what stories are “appropriate” is highly presumptuous and cheeky.
You disagree with being concerned with child safety online, thus this report does not meet your high and exalted amoral ethical standards of journalistic excellance, patterned after the MSM or North Korea.
Enrique Dans, a corrupted spanish blogger, uses his blog to blackmail company managers? is that right? is it acceptable? can a blogger say whatever? the more he blackmail the more comments he gest in his blogs and the more important seems to be?
@ipanema: LOL very good points, “no guns in their lunchboxes” Ha.
Elzorro: blackmail is a crime, no matter what venue you use.
My opinion: I agree with Lawerence Lessig, his statement in Code 2.0 that there won’t need to be laws, bills, regulation to stop unwanted behavior and content online.
The Powers That Pretend To Be will simply build their restrictions into the code that creates, structures, and governs the internet, web, and specific sites.
You won’t have a choice between “good” or “bad” online behaviour. You will simply be unable, unless a super hacker / cracker, to perform the act digitally.
To clarify: I am not flaming anyone here or Duncan.
I’m just saying the concerns for child safety online are legit, but i also disagree with hysterical, highly legalistic, repressive measures.
at ease, troops.
With Good comes bad!
Yes Prateek, sad but true. It slices both ways.
@ vaspers, you’re a little deep for 10 am on a Sunday. It’s cool to aim to be eloquent, but only if it doesn’t take away from making sense.
More dangerous than STD’s?
If anything MySpace helps to increase the STD numbers in America.
I guess it’s time to start advertising our compliance and implementation solutions…
It just doesn’t @$#$# matter what parents think in that particular survey.
The real study is to to analyze if exposing that “risky” Internet content increases likelihood to cause behavioral, emotional and mental disorders.
Parents also *think* that children shouldn’t touch door knobs and that everything should be sterilized for their children. That’s bullshit, paranoid and scientifically stupid.
Free and *risky* content will always be there. The solution is rather found in a better moral, value system education, where a better way to prevent social disorders is very simply: LOVE.
In this decaying American society, I’ve constantly observed in restaurants how families interact vs. other cultures. The following average picture I’ve constantly seen may lead to an explanation of why events such as recent Virginia Tech tragedies occur.
a) Affluent-looking, family arrives. Mom orders. Dad orders. Child orders. Grandma asks for a drink
b) Mom and dad discuss business
c) Eat as quickly as possible
d) Children looking at parents and completely unattended
e) Grandma is 100% ignored all the time. Almost an object sitting there.
f) Ask check and go
I was like “Could you please show some #$#$ love to your child??”
Materialistic, superficial, family-detached with an education system purely based on stuffing as much knowledge as possible with no ethical values.
Internet is no to blame. Could you please see a little bit the bigger picture???
We need to insure that our conservative blinders in this nation do not cause us to lose our lead in eBusiness. We’ve already passed anti online gambling legislation that has caused us to lose billions to non-US businesses if this continues the future of online US business could be in trouble.
http://www.ebizmba.com
School violence and sexually transmitted diseases behind the internet in terms of threat level? On what planet does this make sense?
A sexually transmitted disease and school violence is life threating. The worst that will happen on the internet is that your child will come across some porn and be scared. Seriously, a computer cannot physically hurt you. As for the problem of predators, why are you letting your child meet random people whether they were met online or not? The tiny risk the internet poses can be taken away with an ounce of intelligence and education.
Besides Parents, the schools may have to play a continuous and more dominant role in educating children about Internet Safety while they are teaching the Internet basics to young kids.
Perhaps, investing more in school Psychologists and Guidance counselors, so as to offer troubled kids a caring person to turn to when their homelives do not offer an outlet.
If someone has no understanding adult to turn to, they may seek out relationships over the Internet without any guidance.
It does appear that we are in the era of the two job family - parents are working longer and harder to thrive.
Those poor kids.
Being abused by the internet..
Why don’t people ever poll me?
This is ridiculous. The internet is not more dangerous than neglect, the internet is only dangerous IF you neglect your kids. Like any other information source, it’s only a problem if you never interact with your kids and become a part of their life. Let’s blame video games next instead of the parents who lets their kids play these games for hours without ever talking to them.
GJ
http://www.60in3.com
Regardless, all the social networks, who deall with teen safety on a daily basis, and have real insight into the actual threats need to come together and start sculpting a best practice document before some out of touch legislator forces an ill drafted law down everyones throat.
The process currently underway in the UK needs to be applied to the US.
It’s very much true at this point of time. School kids are ruined by high internet penetration.Every good cause has a bad effect , one being this.
@ patrica – You are right you should not let 9 year olds go unsupervised on the web
@ robert , how could federal legislators enforce such a law to make parents provide more supervision to children using the internet
What I think is that society should wake up and smell the coffee, all we need to do is “teach our kids” that the Internet is a “grown up” place, this is why its called the “World
Wide Web” and young kids under 12 should not use it unsupervised.
Then they are 16 or so they will pick it up and learn it in 5 mins flat, just like they do a VCR now
@Paul – you say, “In reality, parents are the ones who need to be watching where their kids are going on the internet - it is not that difficult.” - but tell me are you a “parent” Paul? I’m sure many parents like me will tell you its simply not that easy to “watch” what they are doing because it takes just a fraction of a second for them to click on the wrong link in search results and the damage can already be done once the screen image appears with pictures their young eyes should not be seeing.
@ Gal – well said, “the Internet is only dangerous IF you neglect your Kids”, you are right of course BUT the problem is that parents are not taught this, if we had a clear, concise and simple social understanding that the Internet is not, nor never will be “safe for kids” then all parents could understand that its their responsibility not to let them go on line alone like Ali here in this discussion has already said.
So to summarise, the truth is, we as a society need to turn the focus of this problem around, instead of shouting at the void that the “Internet is not safe for Kids, what are we going to do about it” we should simply say, “OK, enough already, listen up, lets accept the Internet will never be safe or Kids so what are we as Families going to do to change the way we permit our kids to interact with it”?
We also (and this is a bigger and more important point that his one liner would suggest) need to clearly define what is a Kid? What age group does this mean for Internet exposure?
To me, the most “at risk” kids are under 12, the ones who are not yet fully able to “learn the facts of On-Line! Life” Its the under 12’s that need the most help and I do not think that this help should depend on just parents I think the whole family should be involved.
The solution is certainly not a top down, censorship, rubbish-filter or legislative job
The solution will be found by Families supporting their youngest Family members on line, lets be honest folks, the family network is supposed to be the strongest social network on earth, surely that social network can do something about this problem and take ownership of the solution?
- Ian Hayward, Glaxstar
As a mother and a grandmother who works in the Web 2.0 environment (yes we do exist), you are underestimating the impact that the very technology you write about has on kids of all ages. Well supervised kids with attentive and loving families will misspell an address, tweens will use all these phone aps you all love so much- how do you expect parents to monitor web enabled phones?
Government will step in to regulate unless the tech community does it first. The next great YouTube- develop parental controls for the web and phone that work. Dont blame the parents- that is a cop out. You want a free web for adults than help us protect our kids. We dont than government will.
How can you say “whipping up hysteria” when the reality is there ARE sexual predators exploiting children online? As a parent, I do not believe it is possible to exaggerate that alarm. You come across as a heartless analyst.
As a mother, my son uses the Firefly web browser and can’t “misspell” as I have to allow each website with a password.
Turn your kid’s “web” off, that’s how you monitor it. They don’t need to surf the ‘net on their phones.
I disabled text messages and any unnecessary features on my son’s phone. Granted, he’s 6, but I would do it even if he was 12, 16. I also have a feature where he can’t dial a number I haven’t already preset (other than 911).
The internet isn’t something to worry about unless parents don’t want to respect it and their children by taking the necessary precautions.
yaya if the parents really think internet safety its such a big problem .. what they will say bout the TV . Everyday Bulgarian TV’s are showing advertisments where 70% of the women are almost nude .. i am not sure whats really more dangerous what will kids find in Internet ? And bout violence there is much more outside ( may be not in Usa but .. ) better stay infront of the monitors than “hangin” out with friends at midnight , right ?
and btw parents u cant stop 16 teen by setting password on his browser phone or what ever , if there is a will there is a way / and btw dont talk with your kids about sex , they already know what to do and what to use
I have a younger sister who is frequently on the internet and I always worry about what shes doing. I told my parents about this site I found, NetSmartz411.org which is a great resource for parents looking for ways to keep their kids safer. The best part about it is that if parents have questions about keeping their kids safer, they can email this site and real people will respond with answers to specific questions. Hopefully the more people know about the dangers of internet, the safer it can be in the future.
Amy, I agree that a 6 year old doesnt need a web phone, or any cell phone and that it is easy to turn the web off at this age. Wait till middle school when they must use the web for school and you cant always be around. Schools try to educate parents about having a computer in a busy room of the house and the more tech savvy try to put in filters but it is a daunting task. What is easy at age 6 gets difficult at 10, 12 or 14 and we tend to forget that these are still kids. This is an issue that needs to be addressed by the tech world, parents and educators for it is too much for parents to handle alone and no one wants government involved. T
Yes, I do know that there are predators online, but THE ONLY REASON you hear about them is because they DON’T happen often. If that sort of thing happened all the time, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. I am 12 years old, and already I have 3 wikis, accounts on several things, and I have NOT been threatened.
Parents should ease up. I think what they meant by “children” in the poll are MINORS. Otherwise, they probably wouldn’t have categories for school violence and STIs. Trying to limit the internet will work about as much as trying to succeed in catching a nuclear bomb with a butterfly net. In other words, IT WON’T HAPPEN.
There is the thing about cyberbullying, but there are laws about that, and it’s like what I said before. IT DOESN’T HAPPEN OFTEN, or else it wouldn’t be worth discussing.
HEY LEVI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What up you sex adict. to jake