Nontechnical Strategies to Reduce Children's Exposure to Inappropriate Material on the Internet Summary of a Workshop (2001) / Chapter Skim
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2 The Context of Strategy Development: The Needs of School and Parents
2 The Context of Strategy Development: The Needs of School and Parents
Pages 6-16
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From page 6... ...
Designing an effective approach to protecting children requires awareness of the particular issues and challenges confronting policy in this area. This chapter describes some of the key contextual challenges that parents, teachers, and policy makers face in designing an approach to reducing children's exposure to inappropriate material Internet content.
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From page 7... ...
Workshop participants used "inappropriate material" to include Internet content that is sexually explicit or violent, hate speech such as Nazi and Holocaust-denial sites, material that could encourage young people to engage in illegal or risky behavior (e.g., directions for making bombs, purchasing guns, or pro-drug, alcohol, or tobacco sites) , commercial ventures that target children for direct marketing campaigns, and web sites that violate young people's privacy by encouraging them to disclose personal information (e.g., address, home phone number, social security number, parent's credit card)
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From page 8... ...
Because the Internet is not just a repository of information that may be passively browsed, but rather a dynamic and interactive system, the opportunity for users to be exposed to inappropriate content is not limited to viewing web sites alone. For example, chat room "talk" can become its own form of sexually explicit material, bulletin boards or newsgroups may contain graphic language or may center on inappropriate themes, Internet users are
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From page 9... ...
Presenters encouraged the development of strategies that would not only reduce young people's exposure to inappropriate web sites but would also teach online safety that could help protect them from unsafe or upsetting interactions with other users. SOCIAL CONTEXT: CHALLENGES IN DEVELOPING AN APPROACH Policy makers, parents, teachers, school administers, librarians, and other adults charged with the task of facilitating young people's Internet use face a number of challenges in designing an approach to dealing with inappropriate Internet content.
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From page 10... ...
First, because every student needs access to resources that engage them in learning and refining skills and therefore must be connected to the Internet, schools need to be concerned that high-quality and reliable content is available on the web. Students need to have fast access to useful material, and class time is wasted if students have to spend considerable time sifting through irrelevant content to get at the resources they need.
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From page 12... ...
Not only do media and information literacy teach young people useful cognitive skills like effective search strategies, critical thinking, and learning to evaluate sources for reliability and validity, but also these same skills can help prevent children from stumbling onto inappropriate material in the first place or from being drawn in by misinformation and messages that run contrary to their values.
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From page 13... ...
If schools and parents rely exclusively on filtering, they may not prepare students for the inevitable instances of failure to screen objectionable material and may not have a plan for addressing exposure if it does occur. In addition, young people will eventually have unrestricted access to the web, and conveying ethical perspectives on the use of the Internet is a valuable message that may be neglected if filters are not recognized as imperfect.
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From page 14... ...
Despite the availability of sexually explicit material, most parents agree that the Internet is an extremely useful and productive tool in improving academic performance and preparing their children for a technology-driven society. As a result, few parents would cancel Internet services to prevent access to pornography.
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From page 16... ...
that their children may know better than they how to disable a filter or erase temporary log files. Similarly, parents are also frequently unaware of nontechnical strategies that could be helpful in establishing boundaries, defining appropriate behavior online, and developing consequences if their children do not follow the rules.
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