There are many risks for children surfing the Internet if they do not follow the advice of safe browsing and have not received the correct information about the dangers and pitfalls that lie in wait for them.
What are the risks for children on the Internet and on social media?
– Grooming: From these new ways of communicating, new risks or forms of harassment have emerged with a fatal impact, such as grooming, a practice through which an adult gains the trust of a minor with a sexual purpose.
– Sexting: The sexting or exchange of photographs or videos with erotic content among the young people themselves, with whom they later extort money, causing significant psychological damage.
– Cyberbullying: On the other hand, there is what is known as cyberbullying, or harassment among minors than on the Internet due to its global nature, it is a scope that can generate much damage not only to at least but to family and friends.
From what age do children enter social networks?
In some countries, the minimum age to access a social network, except for those specifically for minors, is 14 years old.
At what age do children already have their own mobile phone?
The development of mobile telephony and those known as Smartphones allows young people to have access to the Internet in their pocket. The average age of initiation in mobile telephony by minors is between 10 and 12 years. In addition, most minors access the internet at home or on the street.
How to warn them of the dangers of this new form of communication?
The little ones have to value physical communication above that which they can establish through new technologies. The advantages of knowing the interlocutor versus the risks of not doing so. Your education is the foundation for a safer Internet future. Thus, it is important to tell them that they have to take into account that talking regularly with a stranger on the internet does not make him or her known. Addiction to new technologies is a problem on the rise that parents should not neglect and give it the importance it has. The time that their children spend on the Internet must be limited, depending on the motivations for using the network and age.
Controlling Internet access in minors is somewhat complicated. At home you can have parental control activated on all Internet access devices but it does not have to happen the same outside our home.
For example, you should bear in mind that when your son or daughter meets at their friends’ house, you don’t know if their parents have a filter for minors who access the Internet, called Parental Control.
What is parental control?
Parental Control is a filter used to screen content not suitable for minors. It is very useful for those moments when the little ones in the house access YouTube, for example, to see only children’s or musical content. In that case, you should use YouTube Parental Controls.
Parental control prevents them from viewing videos that are not recommended for their age or whose content is sensitive to them. First of all, it is essential to highlight the importance of family communication. Parents are responsible for informing our children, so that they understand that very useful and truthful content can be found on the Internet. But there is another facet to the grand universe of the Internet, and that is malicious content.
Depending on the age of the child, you may not understand what content is appropriate and what is not. Efforts will have to be made to make them understand the difference.
A real case
A few days ago, a mother friend told us that her 8-year-old daughter was watching videos of a youtuber who offers content suitable for minors and in the video thumbnails a minor was snorting cocaine. In this case, a child is not able to understand the context, but he can see it as something normal. If they do it and have fun, why is it going to be bad? It is essential that the child understands and learns that the Internet is an infinite means of communication and information. But that not everything it contains is truthful or positive.
This situation motivated the parents of the minor to see the entire video and they did not find anything out of the ordinary, even so they chose to report (mark) the video for YouTube to review and detect this type of malicious content even with parental control.
It is very easy for children to search the Internet. We were recently told about another case, that of a boy looking for wallpapers for his computer of his favorite video game. It turns out that the images offered by the search engine are clearly identified with the video game and apparently seem innocuous, but there are those who take advantage of the innocence of those who search for this content and upload sexual, macho or violent content hidden in these images to the network.
How to restrict access to YouTube content?
The configuration of restricted content on YouTube is very simple, you just have to go to the channel from which the minor accesses and scroll to the end of the channel, you will find a tab: Restricted mode.
Select: YES and save
There are also applications that make your configuration work easier. Based on our experience, we can recommend Famisafe.
We also recommend NOT ALARMING before the contents of the Internet. It is important that you inform yourself about how to act when you have minors who regularly access the network through computers or mobile devices. Parental control can be of great help.
Communication and trust are basic pillars between parents and children, we should not demonize the internet, but we must educate in order to know how to discern between useful content from what is not. We also recommend you to understand how to put parental controls on YouTube.
Keep in mind that your children are very likely to do better with new technologies than you do. That is why we think that informing about the best way to educate and inform minors in the use of information and communication technologies is important.
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