The children and adolescents who can access the Internet have a whole world of possibilities within their reach where they have a lot of valuable information, but there may also be situations that threaten their privacy or security. It should not be forgotten that children themselves can be those who break the law through the Internet, as in the case of copyright, or insults or defamation.
Children should be trained to know what cannot be done on the Net and to recognize their own and others' illegal actions. The main risks that children can face are:
- Access to inappropriate content or images, either intentionally or by mistake.
- There are Internet scams with incentives, such as technology or money devices, that can induce them to transmit personal data such as the phone number or credit card.
- Children and youth who spend hours in front of computers run the risk of isolating themselves and having problems in their social relationships.
- There are numerous viruses that are on pages and installed on the computer automatically, and that can steal data and images stored in the device.
- The advertising of some web pages may contain images with high-level sexual content or ideas harmful to minors.
- Sedentary lifestyle and screen abuse can cause serious health problems, such as childhood obesity, eye strain or cervical lesions.
- Also the use of touch-sensitive mobile phones can cause bruising on the extensor tendons of the thumb, an injury that can rise to the wrist and cause chronic pain.
- Access to online chats with other users can put children in contact with people who are looking for victims to engage in sexual harassment and who try to establish a friendly relationship to get the child to send erotic photos to them.
- Another of the abuses that can occur on the Internet is grooming, where a pedophile or sexual harasser uses a false profile to get in touch with children or adolescents in social networks and obtain data, images, or even the keys to access to the accounts of minors. With this, he manages to blackmail minors by threatening to make public all the information they have been getting if their wishes are not fulfilled.
- The cyberbullying is another serious Internet risks for children and youth. It is the harassment by a person who seeks to destroy others’ self - esteem by using technological means.
What Can Parents Do?
In order to tackle all these issues tactfully, parents are needed to take smart steps such as installing the app for parents to monitor their kids’ phone. With the app in hand, parents can not only see the content they browse on the internet or the apps they use but, also the contacts they save in their device, SMS they receive or sent and calls they make etc. There are many apps in the market but the one extraordinary is FamilyTime as the app offers much more than what is listed above. Want to know what are its offered features? You can check it by giving the app a free try. To get the app now, either visit the app store on your phone or simply click on the buttons given below:
