Four out of five parents do not monitor their children's internet use because they don't know enough about it. Marie Murray outlines what they need to do
Parents cannot control their children's internet use. Or so they say. So do their children. Research conducted on behalf of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform Internet Advisory Board by Amárach Consulting agency found that a staggering 81 per cent of parents agree that they can neither control nor monitor their children's internet use because, quite simply "they don't know enough about it".
This gap in parents' computer competence compared to their children's confidence about media is such that the combination of parental anxiety and lack of knowledge makes this one of the most contentious issues between parents and children today. It leads to endless rows and extreme action. Parents increasingly leave for work with the coil of cables that usually connect computer to socket and port to phone, as their last resort means of keeping their children off the home PC. Young people smirk as they insert their own set of leads or simply access the net elsewhere.
Parents who are more au fait with technology try to password protect home access but a surprising number of children crack the code. And who needs home access when it is easily got elsewhere? Additionally, many parents are confused about the interaction between entertainment, information and communication media. Hardly surprising as these media increasingly merge and converge.
How then is one to understand more about DVD and MP3s, about mobile phones, games consoles, and their relative roles in the lives of children, their benefits and potential dangers? Who is monitoring what? Where does responsibility for child safety lie? What are the main domains in which families interact with the internet and what is appropriate use of the internet in home, school and out-of-home settings?
And why do parents feel so immobilised by it all, as if someone had pressed the pause button freezing them into inaction and suspending them in a spell of fear while around them their children are logging, blogging, browsing and texting, and generally LOL (in text parlance laughing out loud) at the magic of media their parents do not understand.
The site of much current parental angst is bebo - Blog Early Blog Often, advice which is taken by as many as half a million Irish users. Along with myspace.com, a similar site which has the added advantage of allowing users to upload their own music, these are social networking arenas that have become the new cyber social domains of the 21st century. But concern about bebo is symptomatic of a wider social discourse, which is who controls the media and the mental, marketing, value and ethical environments children occupy?
For many parents bebo is just one more internet development to keep up with because technology is ever evolving while parents pant behind trying to keep pace with both the positive potentialities and the dangerous possibilities of this new adolescent craze. It's a continuous challenge to understand the new vocabulary, altered mentality, technological ideology and virtual reality their children inhabit.
But like it or not their children speak that language and visit mental worlds of which their parents are unaware. They also "chat" to their friends through the net. They download games on their phones. They know what their parents don't know. But no matter how competent they are, they don't know what their parents know. They don't know life. And they don't know the extent of the danger that awaits them, even when they are being most careful.
Children may be technologically proficient, but being able to operate a machine does not mean that you can process its content, and that is why parents' intervention is so important at this time. The prime parent rule that one knows where children are, with whom, and what is happening in their lives applies to the internet. Children do not go out alone to unknown places. The internet is no different.
Of course safety strategies change as technology changes. That is a problem. For example the classic first rule of computer use, that it occupy a communal space visible to the parental eye, becomes less protective with the imminent introduction of internet access via the mobile phone. But regardless of technological changes, there are certain net-connected rules which may be summarised as follows: Be aware, be vigilant, and be knowledgeable. There are a million benefits for your child in new technology, but there are a million risks from which you cannot protect them if you don't know what they are.
Research commissioned by the Internet Advisory Board, for example, shows that children visit chat rooms more than their parents think they do. An estimated 26,000 10-14-year-old children access the internet at their friends' homes, where they are often unsupervised and where they explore the online world more than they would alone. As many as three in 10 children communicate exclusively with people they don't know and 20 per cent of children, more girls than boys, say that someone they did not know has tried to make contact with them by asking for their home address, e-mail, their surname or their phone number.
Even the most careful of children are not secure. A simple statement of where you are going this weekend can inform a predatory adult of where you will be. While children may protect their own profile, they are linked to friends who may not have secured theirs, and so are accessible if those friends admit "new friends" to the group.
So what should you as a parent do? Ask questions. Take computer courses and also get your children to teach you. Learn their games, visit sites, and check the history button to see where in cyberspace they have been. Look at telephone bills to see how long your child has spent on line. Mobile phone bills will alert you to the amount of text or picture messages your child is sending. Check the suitability of game titles at www.pegi.info. Set boundaries about when and where the internet can be accessed and for how long. Check compliance. Ensure age appropriate material is all they see. Form monitoring cohorts with other vigilant parents and don't let your child go where internet access is unsupervised. Warn children never to give personal information or meet anyone offline. Teach them not to click on retail sites, how to ignore scams and pop-ups. Be sure the internet is not a substitute for friends: that they are not lonely, isolated and excluded from friendship groups. Visit bebo. View myspace.com and report any inappropriate sites you see. Finally, e-mail and text your children regularly, just to tell them how great they are. Your good relationships with your children are their most protective factor.
Children today have got the whole world in their hands. Technology provides this world, one we should welcome, enjoy and employ. The benefits are enormous, with information at the touch of a button and international contact within seconds. There are mechanisms so compact we can carry them in our pockets. We have access to the supermarket, cinema, entertainment, games console, banks, encyclopaedia, newsagent, bookshop, radio and worldwide education and research.
The small screen is a big window, a window on the world, a techno-cultural reality for us to master and respect, become proficient in its use, enjoy it benefits, be aware of its abuses and protective of those who are not yet able to protect themselves. It is not to be afraid but to be aware, not to be alarmist but alert. Because there is a reality beyond cyberspace and if traumas happen our children, we have no rewind buttons for their lives.
Marie Murray is director of psychology at St Vincent's Hospital, Fairview. The Internet Advisory Board free booklet Get With It is on its third reprint because it gives parents information, support and advice. Freefone 1800-242595 or phone 01-6028600, email getwithit@justice.ie or www.iab.ie. Advice and support is also available through Parentline at 1890-927277 or talk@parentline.ie