These days, using the Internet and websites is an everyday occurrence. We use the Internet for everything from what to cook for dinner tonight to our daily communication with friends and family. But it is the ability to communicate without face-to-face contact that creates problems.
Online communication has a major problem. The other person\’s emotions, facial expressions, and moods are hidden behind artificial emoticons that tell us nothing or confuse us unnecessarily.
Our limited ability to discern the true feelings and expressions of others complicates things. There are those who take advantage of this shortcoming for their own malicious purposes. There are far too many cases in the world where young, innocent children are lured by adults posing as their peers. To combat these cases, various watchdog groups have been formed to intentionally lure these Internet criminals into traps and punish them according to the law. But that is not the only bad thing the Internet allows people to do.
Mass transmission of photos and videos to hundreds of devices in an instant. While a nice feature that saves a lot of time, it is also a means of cyberbullying. Sending embarrassing photos or embarrassing videos without the possibility of returning them can ruin someone\’s life. More than half of all teenagers in the Czech Republic have experienced cyberbullying, and one in ten children admit to having voluntarily participated in cyberbullying. The most common forms of cyberbullying are name-calling and insults. Social networks such as Messenger, Skype, and ICQ are used for this purpose.
The Internet is hardly a completely safe place, and we need to be vigilant about our children and the Internet. After all, when we let our little ones play on the playground, we are always keeping an eye on them.