Post #8

I just so happen to have done a presentation about Child Abduction before I read one of this week's articles, "New Media and Society". This article discussed parental attitudes towards the interent and how it effected how and when they let their children use it. It seems that some parents were afraid of on-line predators and were hesitant to let their children use the interent at first because of it. On-line predators are a real threat, while most are sexual predators some even turn into child abuctors. Parents have every right to feel hesitant to let their young children use the interent for this reason. While this is a real threat, it did seem that most parents out grew the feeling of this threat and were more afraid to let their children use the internet because they had lack of information on it or less accessibility to it. Parents should definitely guard their children from dangerous things on the internet, however, as seen in other articles, using the internet can be a very positive social aspect to someone's life. As seen in the "Benefits of Facebook Friends" article, people were able to maintain old friendships and create opportunities for themseleves from holding on to these relationships and keeping in touch with others. I think the internet has a lot of positives and negatives, but if used correctly it can positively effect almost every aspect of one's life - such as jobs, relationships, and opportunities. Parents should be skeptical of the internet but try to keep an open mind and learn more about it so they can teach their children how to safely use it.