The person I researched on for my frontline assign was Evan Skinner. I thought it was a bit interesting how she viewed the internet as way different from her kids, so I’m going to be doing my essay on how parents view “online social networking” different from their kids:
RESEARCH
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/tech/tec13.shtm
http://malenel.wordpress.com/2007/06/01/25-perspectives-on-social-networking/
What Parents hear the words “online social networking”: Fear and danger are some of the more common words that come into their minds. Many parents are more concerned than accepting of their kids participating in social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace.
Their problems with social networking are:
kids are posting too much information about their personal lives online.
They’re sharing pictures, and videos over the internet, and don’t care about who see them or does what with them.
They’re alarmed that their kids are using blogs, and instant messaging to communicate with their friends, and are afraid that social networking is not private enough.
Parents are more frustrated because technology is growing; their kids are finding more and more ways to communicate through devices such as cellphones;
some parents also feel less savvy with computers and technology than their kids are, and are more afraid because if something happens, they wouldn’t have much knowledge about it.
Parents’ concern with social networking is the lack of privacy, cyber bullying, and most importantly, online predators.
Parents deal with these problems in different ways. They are encouraged to talk about safe communicative methods with their kids, and let them know the dangers. They also try to get more used to the technology their children use so that they would have first-hand experience about what is happening online, instead of having to listen to media reports and the like to find out about things. They also take measures at home to make sure their kids are taking safe practices with their online lives-some parents (like Evan Skinner) keep the computer in an open space in their houses so that they can have a look at what their kids are doing now and then. Parents could also take advantage of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act if their kids are under 13-COPPA makes it a requirement for sites to have the consent of parents before using or sharing their children’s information, and it also allows parents to access their kids’ pages and delete or modify them (so long as they’re under 13).
