2001-01-06-3:39 am CDT
My 12 year old cousin got AOL for Christmas. Being the one most knowledgeable of computers (which isn't saying much because I don't really know a whole lot about them), I was asked to set it up for him. No problem right? WRONG!!! The actual installation was nothing. It was the preferences that I had trouble with, that I'm still having trouble with. My aunt knows nothing about computers. She won't really be able to monitor what my cousin is doing with his online time. So I set up the "Parental Controls" that AOL so kindly provides. No IM's, no chat rooms, web restrictions for 12 years and under. So here we are all set up with said controls and the kid can't access disney.com! I upgrade the settings the settings to just filter out extremely explicit material (read: porn). So far so good. Next comes the problems with Instant Messages. My cousin emails me today and asks for me to take off the block on chats and IM's so he can have "a member profile!" Of course I told him no and explained as diplomatically as I could about the dangers of giving too much info about oneself online. How do you tell a 12-year-old to watch out for perverts online, that by giving out once ounce of personal information leaves him open to a multitude of people who prey on children? It's one thing for an adult to give out information about themsleves online. We are more apt to be careful to keep private information, well, private. But to put a guileless child at that kind of risk is unacceptable. This is one of the major problems with the net. It's too easy to be whoever you want to be here in this digital world. Sometimes that's a blessing. And sometimes it's a very scary burden. I don't feel bad about saying no to him. The only thing I feel bad about is that I have to worry about this in the first place. Love,
Supersteph
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