Technology Matters

Your Child and the Internet

Volume 6 / Issue 3 / Spring 2006

You knock on your teenager’s bedroom door and enter. She is at her computer and seems to be working on a Word document. But you also see several flashing bars across the bottom of the screen. You inquire, and she tells you that she is working on her history paper and is having four different instant messaging conversations.

Parents should be as involved in their children’s cyber–social life as they are in their real-world friendships.

“All at the same time?” you ask skeptically.

She responds, “I’m really good at multitasking.”

You wonder for the umpteenth time what it is that she does online.

What Youth Do Online

Your teen and millions of others are part of the Internet generation, whose members depend on computers and the Internet both for school and for pleasure. Here are some common uses of the Internet among middle school and high school children:

• Instant messaging: having one-on-one, text-based conversations, often several at a time. AIM from America Online and Yahoo! Messenger are popular services.
• Blogging: journaling online, either publicly or privately. Blogs (short for Web logs) are hosted at sites such as www.xanga.com and www.livejournal.com.
• Online networking: using services such as MySpace () to create a profile and post pictures, start a blog, join groups, list friends, and make new friends.
• Downloading music: building a collection of audio files either legally, via iTunes and other legitimate vendors, or illegally, via peer-to-peer file-sharing networks such as limewire or kazaa.
• Searching for information for school and out-of-school activities.

Pros and Cons of Youth Internet Use

The Internet allows access to information like never before and makes it possible for youth to communicate with their peers in ways that were unimaginable even a few years ago. However, it raises concerns, such as

• a loss of privacy and compromised safety
• excessive time spent away from schoolwork, reading, sports, and “real” interactions with peers
• diminished vocabulary and grammatical skills due to online language’s informal punctuation, incorrect spellings, contracted words, and special acronyms (lol, brb, and so on)
• a tendency to do homework and engage in instant messaging conversations to such an extent that multitasking interferes with cognitive performance
• the possibility of breaking the law by downloading music, movies, and other copyrighted material
• inadvertent plagiarism and reduced ability to distinguish credible sources

Safeguarding Youth and Counteracting Misuse

What can you do to help your children use the Internet wisely?

• Instruct them never to give personal information to anyone or any Web site without your permission.
• Caution them not to talk to strangers or acquaintances whom you have not approved.
• Remind them that IM conversations should not be recorded or shared without the other party’s permission; advise them to be mindful when writing about others, such as friends, classmates, and teachers.
• Explain that blogs can be read by anyone on the Internet. If you are uncomfortable with the idea of your children maintaining a public blog, insist that it be made private so that they can control access to it.
• Set limits on the amount of time your children spend online so that other activities, such as homework, are not compromised.
• Talk to them about the language they use online. Explain that appropriate use of language depends on context and that spelling and sentence structure used in e-mail and IM conversations are inappropriate in school.
• Firmly explain intellectual property rights, and caution your children that downloading music from peer-to-peer file networks is illegal.
• Explain that not all online information is equally credible and that they should pay attention to the Web sites from which they get information. Also explain that they should not simply copy and paste information from the Internet into their own schoolwork.

Talk to your children and find out what they do online, whom they communicate with online, and what they talk about. Parents should be as involved in their children’s cyber–social life as they are in their real-world friendships.
—Kaveri Subrahmanyam, PhD

Kaveri Subrahmanyam is associate professor of child and family studies at California State University, Los Angeles, and associate director of the Children’s Digital Media Center at the University of California, Los Angeles. She has dealt with many Internet-related issues as a parent of two Internet-savvy teens.