This Tuesday I discovered it was Safer Internet Day. I realize every cause, disease and controversy has its own day but this one just seemed relevant to me based on recent experiences.
The Internet is a vital part of my life. I communicate with family members and friends, I advertise, I research, I share, I shop and I play on-line.
I try to protect my children by limiting their time on the computers and by monitoring their activity. They want greater freedom and on-line time but at this point it's about exploration for them and I don't think it is truly necessary. I'm not afraid they'll be hurt by social media lurkers or predators, but I do sometimes worry about the addictive nature of the games they want to play.
In my life in a small community I believe I need the Internet, but don't really trust it when it comes to my teenage son and younger daughter. I don't think they'd try to find things not meant for their eyes, but like the walk to school on streets with banks of snow down the sides and centre it isn't always easy to find the safest way to get to where you want to go.
I cringe now while using search engines. In the past it was easy for me to ignore naughty words but now I sometimes find myself seeking images and I've blushed while alone and glimpsing much more than I was looking for.
With innocent words I've found visions foul enough to burn a hole through the screen and my eyes, things I wouldn't want my innocent darlings to stumble upon. I've tried to set safety settings and have come to believe the owners of the materials offending me are just more tech savvy.
There are no plain paper wrappers, ratings or labels warning of explicit lyrics or visuals on my screen and although it didn't happen to me until I started using image searches it feels like I'm being bombarded and I'm considering going back to using the World Book Encyclopedia to find pictures of flora, fauna and faraway lands. I want to be able to use the information available to me, but I think there should be some way to protect me.
The medium is relatively new and the amount of information available at our fingertips is so vast it is exciting and now the big companies want to find a way to charge us more for the transfer of data we seek and the garbage just popping up. Maybe the only way to save myself from it is to turn away from the monitor and use the Internet less.
