Internet identities

[azziria]

A major item on the UK news this morning is the 12 year old girl who has run off with a 31 year old American man who she met in an Internet chatroom.

One thing I find really strange is that her parents say she was spending up to 11 hours a day on the Internet. Maybe I’m being naïve (and my daughter isn’t 12 yet, so I can’t speak from experience), but I’d think there was something very wrong if my child was spending so much time on the computer, and I’d certainly take steps to do something about it.

You really can’t know whom it is you’re communicating with. There was someone a while ago on a message board I visit who several of us chatted to a lot, and got on well with, who turned out to be a hoaxer. In retrospect you could see that there were little oddities about them, but there was nothing at the time that really seemed strange enough to make you realise. It wasn’t until this girl decided to kill off her ‘character’ and appear herself as his friend that she got found out. The strange thing to me is that the character she created, who we all chatted to so much, still seems like a real person in my mind, even though ‘he’ was an invention. This was somebody I liked, who I probably would have looked up if I were ever in his part of the world. Now, I’m a (relatively!) mature adult who wouldn’t have put myself in any sort of dangerous situation to meet this person, but I can see how easy it would be for a younger, less worldly-wise person to be totally fooled.

I’m glad I spend some time on the Net myself – at least when my kids start getting interested in using it I’ll have some idea of what’s going on out there, and what the potential dangers are.

Comments

[melancthe.livejournal.com]

I saw that story and I found it shocking.

I quite agree about the time spent on the Net. It seems a trifle bizarre that the parents didn't wonder what she was doing for eleven hours a day? Or if they did, that they didn't monitor what was going on?

Now, I met my husband on the Net, and I took pretty good precautions about things - I even checked him out with a credit bureau to make sure he was who he said he was. Met him in a public place and everything like that too. I hope that I'll be able to instil a sense of caution into DS by the time he gets old enough to use the Net.

[azziria.livejournal.com]

I wonder if the 11 hours a day on the Net thing means that she doesn't have many 'real' friends? I know that when I was her age I didn't have many friends, and we lived out in the country a long way from the few friends I did have, so I spent a lot of time on my own - I could see that I might have spent a lot of time on the Internet if it had existed then. The only answer I can see as a parent is to encourage your kids to have lots of interests and hobbies, and to put the time in yourself to support them, but how easy that is with a 12 y.o. I just don't know. Looking at the people I know now, it seems to me that the ones who had very major hobbies/sports interests as youngsters got into less trouble than the rest of us.

[melancthe.livejournal.com]

We moved around a lot when I was a child - my dad was a geologist and kept being moved to different mines - so I never really had any friends and also spent a lot of time on my own. I had a Spectrum, and I spent the whole day playing games on it, so I suspect I would have also been addicted to the Net. But I think the major difference was that my parents took an interest in my computer-playing - instead of being tucked away in my room, I used to play on the lounge TV most of the time. And my dad would play games too, so we were always having conversations about it. I think one of the key things is actually being interactive with your kids, regardless of what they're doing. For instance if they're on the Net a lot, you could join a discussion forum together or do something like that, so that the child at least feels that you're involved with what they're doing.

[azziria.livejournal.com]

We've already decided that when the kids start wanting to go online, we'll get a computer for them which will be in the playroom (this is off the kitchen and so will be very 'public'), rather than them using our comp in the study (too secluded, and anyway, don't want them corrupting any of my data!).

[aguynamedrick.livejournal.com]

Our computer is in the family room. From where I'm sitting at the computer, I can see the dining room, kitchen, living room and front door. So, it's visible.

The chat rooms weren't popular when they were younger. Though, I did have a talk to my son about some of the images I found in the disk cache. (They were home from school before either me or my wife.)

The biggest issue we had was they would see movies at their friends house that we didn't feel was appropriate.

From what I've seen, he probably was planning to take advantage of her being 18 (inexperienced, but thinks she isn't & wants to prove she's independent by doing what here parents wouldn't approve of). She lied about her age, so he found himself taking advantage of someone young enough to get in trouble.

We had trouble with our daughter the year she was 18. Her last hear of high school, but that was someone she met though a friend at school. He played that 18 year old need to be independent. He was in his early 20's and had a thing for girls that age.