Building on the previous post, Visual Rhetoric. How do parents protect their kids while they're online, and what are the issues they are most concerned with?
Let's start by talking about a few of the things parents are most worried about. Specifically those things that can be controlled by tools (that is to say not things like cyber-bullying that require human action); that leaves pornography, violent media, and communication with pervs.
As far protecting kids from online predators, the best thing is to talk to kids, but other than that the use of software that is designed to keep kids out of places where they might be targets is your best bet. Software like Microsoft's Windows 7 parental controls has safety measures built in, where settings can personalized to fit a family's needs. The same tools can be used to keep kids safe from pornography, and violent media, but these two problems are so pervasive that even the best tools need to restrict access to the point rendering it useless.
So on to the most significant problem: pornography. Here's some statistics. 12 percent of all sites on the web are pornographic, and 35 percent of all downloads are for porn. On average a child's first exposure to porn is age 11, and the largest consumer demographic group for porn is the 12-17 year old age group, and 90 percent of 8-16 year olds have viewed pornography (most while doing homework). These are some pretty shocking statistics, but the use of firewall software can help stop most of the unintended viewings.
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