The internet has become the most widely used means of communication in recent years. Our children have been so engrossed with the use of the internet that the Awake! (March 2007, page 3 Youths Online)published a report that the internet provides an unprecedented number and variety of meeting places for so-called social networking sites. The internet is very useful, but it's dangers far overweighs its importance. Youths are most vulnerable to internet harassment, stealing, fraud and finally security threats.
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DANGERS OF THE INTERNET
Youths are observed to be the most active users of the internet, and because of their inexperienced minds, there is the tendency of them getting caught on traps that are there on the internet.
Social assault for one is a negative effect of youths going online. Many youths who go online ends up being bullied by mature internet users. They are deceived by these unscrupulous adults to engage in cyber sex. This cyber sex in particular which is also known as sexting involves the sharing or sending of nudes to strangers or friends online and most kids as tender as they are have gotten themselves involved in this.
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Some times some children tends to start their prostitution career online. This online prostitution is most common with the female folks as there has been many of such cases in Nigeria. Off recent,*** I heard of a young girl who met a stranger through the popular Facebook and they both planned a meetup at a hotel. With the hopes that the guy she met online could be trusted she went to the hotel as planned. On getting to the hotel, they both met for the first time and after exchanging pleasantries, the sat on the bed in the hotel room and bonded for a while in form of gisting.
The next phase was both of them going naked on the bed and the guy who was matured took advantage of this young child and disvirgined her. After this incident, or should i say action, the so called nice guy deleted our little girl from his friend list on Facebook. This cause the young girl emotional trauma. After getting over that first incident she continued with that same routine of having sex with the strangers that she meets on social media and this automatically turned her into a prostitute. ***From this story you can see how kids are devoured by these online predators online.
Cyberbullying is also one of the dangers that our kids faces online. Hurtful words are exchanged by kids who go on social media, rumours start and spread easily online. Most of them go as far as hacking the accounts of their fellow, and use it to commit crimes or atrocities with that persons account. later on, the innocent owner of the account comes and face the consequences of what has been done using his account.
Pornography is now the order of the day as most kids that might have innocently gone online to research on their school assignments often gets the adds of pornographic sites popping up. Only 21% of kids who go online are capable of resisting the temptation of visiting these pornographic websites.
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kids are generally curious and online predators know how to play on their emotions. These predators target likely victims, make contact and work to develop friendship, emotional reliance and interest in sexual topics.
PROTECTING YOUTHS ONLINE
Parents needs to set strict rules for their young children's internet adventures so as to protect them from cyberbullies, identity thieves, inapropriate contents and child predators. Installation of pop-up blockers is also necessary to keep your child from pornographic websites. It would be wise to instruct the child never to give out his real details online.
For toddlers or kids younger than 12 , it is wise to keep their computers in places where you can easily monitor their operations online. The parental control feature should also be taken advantage of by the parents.
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Another smart move by parents would be to know the friends that their kids are chatting with. These kids should also be prevented from going to chat rooms until they are of age.
On the issue of sexuality, parents are adviced to discus sexual topics with their kids as this will help the kid to develop a high level of understanding about sec. It will help them to make the right judgements about sex matters before they can be influenced online. It is best to teach your child about sex matters personally because of if they are taught online it might not go well for the kid.
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Granted, we live in the internet age and protecting our children online will go a long way to improving our generation. Thanks for going through this article, I hope parents can learn a thing or two from here. Parents who do not get to face any such agency as the CPS who breaks the threefold cord, that was planned by God Almighty should not allow their children to be taken away from them .