I got here from your latest post on going back to school (good on you BTW). I am ever shocked at the statistics that I learn about Internet use in this regard.

I attended a Netsafe conference in July this year and wrote a post or two on related thoughts. I agree 100% with your take on parenting and the need for careful supervision.

Ka kite

Hazel, thank you for dropping by. I reading reading that “Lawmakers in Connecticut unveiled and debated a bill earlier this week that could require MySpace and other social networking sites to verify the ages of its users.”

Paul, thank you for dropping by and commenting.

Rach, you are right! It is a very disturbing and frightening reality.

Let us not forget too that our sexualized culture is bombarding children with messages about sex.

Children in grade seven at my son’s school were caught with a playboy book and one of the students was suspended for accessing an adult site.

Children get all kinds of stuff on their mobiles and sent to their email box.

I was reading in the Times that “More than one-third of 13-year-old Alberta boys view Internet porn “too many times to count,” and parents have only the vaguest notion about it.”

As the article pointed out there’s nothing new about the fascination adolescent boys have for naked women, but they are now able to have access to it through the net.

Researchers from the University of Alberta surveyed 429 students, ages 13 and 14, from 17 schools and over one third of the kids admitted they’d watched porn videos “too many times to count.”

You really don’t think this is just an internet problem do you?

I think Parents need to get more informed and supervise their children. If parents are concerned than they need to talk to their children about it. Computers should be moved from teens’ bedrooms and parental blocks should be installed.

Crystal, again I applaud their efforts, but there are 4.2 million pornographic websites online. Internet Pornography Sales is a 4.9 billion dollar industry. Do you honestly think that these porn webmasters are going to listen to bloggers and password protect their pages? Why would they? Porn is the largest industry on the internet.