It can’t be repeated too often: the computer is not television. It’s very tempting to use the television as a salve to the five o’clock fever that besets young children – keeping them entertained while you prepare dinner – and, because the box on the desk in the computer room looks a lot like the box in the lounge room, you could be forgiven for treating it the same way as an electronic babysitter.
The computer is, after all, the next logical step up the food chain, because it offers children’s software programs that encourage your kids to be active participants rather than just passive consumers of content.
Letting them play unsupervised on a stand-alone computer – by which I mean one that’s not connected to any other computer or the internet – is just as safe as letting them watch television, as long as you monitor what sort of software they are using. But connecting that computer to the internet introduces a whole new ball game.
Television broadcasters are subject to content regulations. Thus, shows featuring material unsuitable for children can only be screened after a certain hour, and must carry content warnings – so that parents can make informed choices.
The internet, by contrast, has no regulatory body, no centralised content-control mechanisms and no advisory parental warnings.
Anybody can put up a website, and it can say virtually anything. The conundrum for governments trying to control content is that, unlike television, where American viewers have access to American programming, and French viewers have access to French programming, and so on, it’s just as easy for an Australian child to surf to a US- or French-based website as to an Australian one.
Governments of one jurisdiction don’t take kindly to governments from another trying to tell them how to get the job done, so the content on a website which originates overseas might be subject to completely different rules than might be applied here in Australia – or none at all.
This is why it’s a good idea to establish a few rules of your own. In just the same way you set ground rules for your children about interacting with strangers when they first start school – never get into a stranger’s car, never take any food from them or tell them where you live, and so on – a few simple rules will help keep your children out of trouble on the internet as well.
House rules for the internet
The rules of the house are not designed to instill paranoia, but to teach your children discernment, a skill of great value in this world of information and opportunity. Some of the most valuable insights you can give your children about information they will find and relationships they might form on the internet include:
1. Never take what people tell you at face value. It’s perfectly easy to make up an identity on the internet, and none of the visual clues available in face-to-face relationships apply. It’s a difficult concept to teach a child, since it virtually implies mistrusting anyone they meet over the net, but it is important. This rule may be beneficial for grown-ups, too.
2. Never give out information about yourself, such as where you live, your phone number, or whether your parents are away at certain times of the day. These could be innocent questions, but equally, they may not be.
3. Caution your children against giving out your credit card details without your permission, and to regard any person asking for them with suspicion.
4. Never automatically assume that information you read on the internet is true. While the world of television is regulated, and the book publishing process involves a lot of quality control and validation measures, anyone can publish virtually anything on the internet – their own version of events, coloured with their own particular agenda. Teaching your child to think about what they are reading, and learning to confirm or validate, is a sound investment in their safe surfing.
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