Predators or Peers?
Posted by anastasia on 08-09-2006I really like Janet Kornblum — she is USA Today's tech reporter who has the challenging job of trying to cover everything going on with kids/teens and the Internet, technology for a very mainstream audience that includes lots of freaked out parents. It's refreshing to see one of her latest story with the headline: Children less likely to encounter online predators. We all know the predator hype is completely overblown. The hidden statistic in the new survey results Janet reported on is this:
"About 13% (3.2 million) said in 2005 that they had received an unwanted request to engage in sexual activity or conversations in the previous year from either adults or other children. Five years earlier, it was 19%."
This is the dirty little secret — and it's something I saw from my survey results and interviews with teens for Totally Wired. The majority of harrassment happening online is peer-to-peer not adult-to-teen. Whether it's "cyberbullying" or teens making lude, sexual advances towards each other, the Internet is really a Wild West of teen expression. The anonymity of the Internet eliminates the natural filtering system teens have when they are communicating face-to-face. Given where teens are at emotionally and developmentally, it's completely natural that all hell would break loose in this type of forum. Passing DOPEY laws will not do anything about this issue — only spending time talking with teens about the impact of cyberbullying and harrassment has on its victims will.
August 9th, 2006 at 8:23 pm
I completely agree. The internet is a place like any other. There are pedophiles, bullies, etc at the mall, at the ball game and there are plenty online as well.
Kids/Teens need to use the internet, they won't survive in the job market if they can't… Parents going crazy and pulling the plug isn't helping. Youth need guidance, not to be hidden from the net until you are 18 and on your own…
I hope parents get this before it is too late.
August 10th, 2006 at 12:26 pm
Anastasia,
Excellent post! I think that it is critical to realize that the media frenzy over sexual predators is most likely overblown (my research shows that the vast majority of teens feel media on sexual predators in MySpace is overblown while their parents feel that it is quite accurate). Another key fact, buried in the 96 page report, is that most teens, when faced with a "solicitation" simply block the person, tell him to knock it off, or leave the venue. Kids are much smarter and more savvy than parents and educators believe. This is the issue, not the predation itself, but how teens react to it and I think "the kids are alright."