Protecting Our Children from the Internet Essay examples -- Computers

Protecting Our Children from the Internet Children of today are growing up in a technological world. Almost every home has a computer in it. Some homes possibly have more than one computer. The children who live in these homes are learning to use a computer before they can even walk and talk. For example, my seven-month-old son already has a Fisher Price computer. It consists of a bright colorful keyboard, with large keypads, that fits over the keyboard of our home computer. It comes with a CD that shows him images on the screen when he hits the keyboard. He loves "working" on his computer and I love the fact that although he does not know it yet, he is essentially learning how to use a computer. As my son gets older and begins to use the computer more and more, I would like to let him have access to the Internet but not everything that comes along with it. I know that this will not be for some time, but that gives me the opportunity to learn how to protect him from things that are not appropriate for him. For example, there is a website called Rotten.com that shows pictures of people who have been shot or stabbed. It even has the picture showing Nicole Simpson practically beheaded! I know this because my eighteen year old brother likes to look at this website and has shown me before. It is fine if my brother or any other adult wants to view that kind of garbage, but I do not want my son or any other children for that matter, looking at these types of websites. Of course the only way for a parent to be one hundred percent sure of what their child is looking at on the Internet is to look at it with them. But that is not something that every parent has time to do. This does not mean that we cannot let our children use t... ...ir children from objectionable websites on the Internet. Some will be better suited for certain families than others. To find out for sure what system is best for you and your family, you need to do some research and try them out. Works Cited "America Online Parental Controls." AOL.com http://www.aol.com/info/parentcontrol.html (10 Nov. 2001) "Child Safety Software for the Internet." Net Nanny 4. (30 Oct. 2001). http://www.netnanny.com (13 Nov. 2001) "SafeSurf - The Original Internet Rating System." The SafeSurf Internet Rating Standard. Ray Soular and Wendy Simpson. http://www.safesurf.com/sspaln.htm (21 Nov. 2001) "Virtual Software Store." CYBERsitter 2000 v4.1. http://ww.virtualsoftware.com/ProdPage.cfm?ProdID=1772 (17 Nov. 2001) "We-Blocker Internet Filtering Software." We-Blocker. http://www.we-blocker.com/about/index.html (20 Nov. 2001)