Gaming and internet
When it comes to the potential threats that the Internet poses to children, its easy to get swept up in fear and misinformation. With this misinformation, confidently stroll into the casino filled with anxiety and ear-shattering anxiety. You’ve probably visited or participate in online gaming forums where the members discuss topics like ethics in gaming, gaming promotion and Internet security. Maybe you’ve even checked out on gaming blogs and forums.
The Internet is a big public world, suitable for everyone. But nonetheless, we’ve all heard stories about those kids who got ailed by online bullies. And stories are really annoying. Why? Because they tell a story, which makes them stopping and clicking that STOP sign we all know and lots of us have started to religiously copy-paste.
The Internet can be a useful tool, as long as we treat our children with respect and see that they know right from wrong. The online bullies are there, however, they are becoming more and more discouraged as more and more children take part in online gaming. The good news is that with each passing second the bullies lose their fear, gather their courage and get smarter. It’s amazing to see the times they’ve actually gotten away with it. But today, they still don’t get away with it.
Be brave children and do not support those bullies.
What could we do to help? I’ll tell you a story. A friend of mine, quite frustrated with the harassment and bullying of her child on the Internet, had him terminated from the Internet service provider. Unfortunately, this was not enough. She was only looking for advice and supports and anything that would help. I offered to assist, but knew it would take a lot more than my piece of mind to save this child.
We were, as you guessed, quite successful. He quit bullying his fellow students, and he and his sister have been friends since they were little. He’s in a perfect school and has everything a child needs. He has a safe home and would not roam the streets at night with his friends, alone, if provided with the proper guidance and supervision.
Let’s hope for the best. Things should really get better. For example, he is not allowed to have any online friends at all because of the extremely dangerous act of downloading pictures and files. He will, however, be monitored by me, and there will not be any contact with his friend until he’s back in the supervision of his parents. That’s for sure.
Things to Consider
The most important thing for us to do, though, is to beef up our computers. Remove any and all files that are unneeded. Delete any programs that do not need to be running, if they’re not used to achieve some particular goal. Don’t automatically open e-mail, regardless of what it might be. Have specific programs that are unneeded, like the e-mail viewer that allows you to preview images, etc.
After we’ve done that, we need to change the passwords for the online accounts we have. A strong password is the only thing that will protect our computers, of course, but we also need to avoid the obvious mistakes that are made by users when they use the Internet.
Accounts like the browser history that we can’t seem to get rid of, are more than enough reasons to stop using the Internet every time we log in. We should be aware too, of the many e-mail scams that are doing their utmost to convince us to take advantage of their services. Don’t fall prey to their evil plans!