As you swipe away on your tablet or phone, you may not notice the dangers that surround you whilst being online, which means if you don’t notice them, then a 12 year old trying out their new iPad for the first time certainly won’t.
The online world is a fun place. I mean you can join social media, play games and watch videos, and even go shopping. What more could you want? But this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t approach it with caution. The problem with children having access to the internet is that they might not all be as educated as they should be. Here are just a few of the dangers young people could face whilst online:
Viruses/Pop Ups
Let’s start off with an easily avoidable one. Imagine you’re 10 years of age happily playing papa’s pizzeria when you get a pop up “WIN AN IPHONE 7 NOW!”. Of course you want that iPhone 7! So you enter in your details, and bam – pop up galore and a nice new virus on your parent’s laptop. This would be a major inconvenience and could even cause for a new laptop. Some simple education for the children about this topic and a virus protection package could help to avoid this. You may think a virus is bad enough, but that is the least of your worries when a child enters the risky world of the Internet.
Online Bullying
Photo taken of someone on Facebook on iPhone
The problem with today’s generation of children growing up to be materialistic, is the pressures they will start to face whilst venturing online. NSPCC is a charity that focuses on keeping children safe, both online and offline. On their website they state that,
“One in four children have ‘experienced something upsetting’ on social media, and ‘one in five 8-10 year old’s have a social media account“
These statistics are shocking, as personally I don’t see any reason why an 8 year old child needs a social media account which could cause them to grow up a lot faster than they should. Cyber bullying is a major concern when young people join social media, as it becomes a platform for people to easily say whatever they want behind a screen without knowing the real effects, and as young people are extremely influential, this could have an impact on how they view themselves. For example, if all of their school friends are flashing off pictures of their new expensive clothes and gadgets, it could result in those children who are not as fortunate, feeling as though they aren’t good enough. This could really impact their school work and their confidence, as they will be more focused on how others view them, meaning materialism is having a serious negative influence on these children’s lives.
Stranger Danger
In this day and age you have to be extremely careful with who you choose to talk to online, with programmes like ‘Catfish’ on E4 making society realise how easy it is to be caught up in a conversation or even a relationship with someone who is not who they say they are. If it’s easy for adults to be fooled, imagine how easy it is for young people to become involved in this? It’s extremely upsetting once you realise how vulnerable children are, when it can take an online groomer ‘just minutes to persuade a child to meet them’, according to an article in The Guardian. Parental guidance is key to keeping a child safe online, as without that guidance and education, who knows who these children could be talking to on their favourite gaming website.
I think that children growing up with all this technology around them can have a great impact on their future, but I do believe that entering social media and owning tablets and phones from a young age can be seriously dangerous without the right guidance.
PS: Don’t forget children are growing up with this technology and are learning how to use it a lot quicker than we did, so they can be extremely clever in the way they use it. Children have actually waited until their parents fall asleep so they can use their thumb print to both unlock the phone and to buy something online! Keep an eye on these clever clogs!
Thank you for reading!
Holly
Leave a Reply