In our children’s virtual world of communication, one of the emerging axioms I find most troubling is this....

The average age of children who begin to play and experiment with email, instant messaging (IM), and chat rooms gets younger and younger each year.

I know this to be the case because of my experience with the children at my elementary school and because of conversations I have had with parents and teachers around the country when I give talks about internet issues affecting children. For example, three years ago it was unusual for a third or fourth grader to be using chat rooms, instant messaging, or have their his or her AOL screen name. Today, however, I know that each of these is occurring with children as young as eight years old in third grade. And this disturbs me.

While social skills in children continue to build and grow at all ages, third and fourth graders are emerging into a particularly sensitive time of social interaction. It is the time when awareness of self-image is becoming acute. We may often feel this sensitivity expressed in the “Where do I fit in” angst our children may voice. Children are working hard to develop their communication skills and their interpersonal skills just as they are building their reading, writing and arithmetic skills. They practice and develop their skills through their choice of language, voice, inflection, facial expression and body language. In the “real world”, they try out these behaviors, and they can see the reactions they elicit. They see in their peers’ faces the consequences of their words. Unfortunately, the virtual world is a very poor place in which to build communication and interpersonal skills at this age. In particular IM and chat rooms are extremely poor. Never mind that both the pace and culture of these technological “environments” discourage attention to spelling, grammar and good etiquette; more important is the fact that children are much more likely to experiment with inappropriate language and to be involved in inappropriate convsersations without seeing the impact of their words in these environments because of the anonymity they offer. They are also increasingly exposed to inappropriate language used by others; they misinterpret what is being said, come in contact with words that may cause them hurt or alarm and come in contact with strangers in an unmoderated and unsupervised setting. If my sentiments seem alarming, I recommend that every adult who is considering giving a young child an internet account or access to IM and chat should log into a couple of chat rooms for kids and play voyeur for a few minutes. One can easily find chats all over the internet. If you happen to use AOL’s instant messenger, visit http://www.aim.com/community/chats.adp and choose a chat group from the list. Most of these however are more oriented to adulst. Or choose from one of the many teen chats available on the web via Yahoo. Visit http://chat.yahoo.com/c/roomlist.html?.rmcat=1600008562 to find a list. When prompted for a userID and password, click on the link to open a new account.

There are a couple of myths that I would like to dispel. First, most parents I have talked to feel that if their child is using IM, then that child is protected by the buddy list. For those unfamiliar with it, a buddy list is a list of people to whom you or your child has given permission to receive instant messages. When a buddy goes online anywhere in the world, the IM software informs you immediately that your buddy is online, regardless of what you are doing on the computer. The myth is that if your child has a buddy list, then he/she cannot be contacted by strangers. This is only true if the account preferences are set up this way. If the account is not set up to block those not on the buddy list, anyone can contact your child, including pornographers.

Secondly, it is a myth that your child is protected even if you have set up all of the preferences and parental controls properly on an AOL account. AOL opens unfiltered access to the internet once a user logs in. Therefore a child can avoid AOL’s controls by simply launching any other web-browsing software such as Netscape,Internet Explorer, KaZaAa or Limewire once they have logged into AOL first.

Please don’t mistake my intentions. IM and chat as well as email are extremely powerful communications tools when used responsibly and age-appropriately. I cannot imagine not having these tools at my disposal today. However, just because a 9 year old *can* use IM, doesn’t mean he/she should. Once again, I strongly urge all parents to consider these concerns before giving internet access to young children. Talk to your children about instant messaging. Ask them if they think it is a good way to communicate, as opposed to a fun way (make the distinction). Furthermore, most experts concur that all internet access computers in the home should be in public areas where parents can both keep a watchful eye on their child’s activities and act as a guide and fellow adventurer. At what age should we allow a child to have unfiltered internet access in their room? It is for parents to decide what is best for their children. And remember, we can always turn it off.

For other supporting views visit the links below:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2001-07-10-instant-messaging-qa.htm
USAToday article interviewing Parry Aftab, author of “The Parent's Guide to Protecting Your Children in Cyberspace” The author maintains a useful website titled “Cyberangels.org” which provides resources for parents and teachers to help them protect their children.

If you would like to offer filtered email access to children, consider the free service called Kinderstart.com. Though not perfect, it does make a reasonable effort to filter out objectionable content from email with only a minimum exposure to advertising. Visit: www.kinderstart.com/filteredmail.html.