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It's the age of the internet predator [Gulf News (United Arab Emirates)](Gulf News (United Arab Emirates) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Parents can now ensure safe mobile phone usage by their children thanks to a recently-launched software application, now available in the UAE, which allows parents to monitor smartphone activity whenever necessary. The Mobile Minder software was developed by Ireland-based firm MM Technologies and helps parents identify potential safety issues such as cyber-bullying, cyber-predators and inappropriate emails, photographs or text messages. The software can be bought through an online subscription service at www.mobileminder.com, downloaded as an application and then installed on the child's smartphone. The monitoring activity includes tracking the length of calls and texts to website history and app usage, allowing parents a detailed look at their child's mobile phone activity. No doubt tweens and teens will argue the app is an extraordinary invasion of their privacy, which it is. Yet, the creation of such invasive software lends itself to a topic that is increasingly becoming a major concern for parents of digital natives in the UAE. Technology has successfully weaved its way into the fabric of modern society and subsequently education systems. Therefore, young people today are exposed to the internet through laptops, smartphones, tablets and other gadgets practically from birth. While this exposure can be argued to open up a whole new world of knowledge and creative potential it can also be quite dangerous. The cyber-safety of their children is something most parents worry about in the 21st Century, but is not something their own parents had to worry about. Therefore, it can be quite daunting parenting digital natives when it comes to conquering the vast world of the internet at home. You need eyes at the back of your head Khalwa Barley, an Abu Dhabi resident, is a mother of three and says although her eldest daughter is only nine, she is deeply concerned about her children's online activities. "All of them are on the Internet and know how to search for things because it's part of their school work," she said. "Luckily, I do monitor them because I'm usually checking in, but my six-year-old daughter once asked me how to spell ‘sexy' the other day." and asking mummy at six how to spell an inappropriate word is just the tip of the iceberg. Dr Eva Jajonie, clinical psychotherapist at the American Centre for Psychiatry and Neurology in Abu Dhabi, said most of the cases she treats are for problems stemming from Internet usage. "Although the government does censor websites through internet service providers, I have seen more problems caused by internet usage than anything else," she said. "I've had an eight-year-old ask me what porno means because she was exposed to it by her friends who snuck a BlackBerry into school." She cited another anonymous case of an eight-year-old Emirati boy diagnosed with partial blindness because of excessive Internet gaming eight hours daily. "Another patient I treated was a child who stole Dh15,000 from his mother to feed an online video game habit," she said. "Kids these days are tech wizards; they have all kinds of ways of getting through censors and unblocking sites and deleting browser history." However, punishment and enforcing more control methods is not the answer, she said, when it comes to keeping children safe online. "In this country, there is a general lack of awareness concerning child rearing," she said. "The public needs to be more aware of children's digital safety and because there isn't enough of it right now, a lot of children feel lost." She attributes this lack of awareness to busy working schedules that disengage parents from their children. What compounds the problem is a tendency of parents to leave their children to excessive nannying, that amounts to lazy parenting. Young, naïve and vulnerable Some parents may look inwards and tell themselves they are not neglectful, disengaged nor lazy. Yet, they still worry about their child's online safety, possibly fuelled by their own digital inadequacies. So how does a parent set things right? First, he or she needs to get educated on the world their child lives in. Recently, Hollywood attempted to raise awareness about online safety in a recent film called Trust, where a teenage girl from a well-to-do family falls victim to an online predator. Her plight was not the result of her parents' negligence; she was simply too naive to realise the consequences of what she was doing. "I've treated cases of girls who are simply naïve and were talked into sending revealing pictures of themselves to online strangers they later met in person," said Dr Jajonie. Although most parents may think their little angels would never do such things, the truth is naivete and is far more dangerous than what parents think. Vigilance is the only solution. Recent Interpol statistics reveal that one in five children around the world accessing the Internet regularly becomes a target of cyber predators or paedophiles each year. Beware of the cyber-bully "Cyber bullying is something I worry more about than online predators," said Francis D'Cunha, father of a nine-year-old girl. "That's why I don't want her to have a Facebook account, which all her friends do." Facebook in fact has an age limit and requires users to be at least 13 before creating an account. Yet, recent UK media reports have shown how ill-informed parents are in reality in helping their children set up under-age profiles on the social networking site. Parents are thus essentially setting their children up as bait for would-be predators. In New Zealand, school principals are lobbying for the power to search students' smartphones and laptops as a means to combat cyber-bullying. School heads have even gone as far as working with the New Zealand Ministry of Education to gain the power to confiscate digital devices at school as a means to ensuring student safety against cyber-bullying. Says D'Cunha about what parents must do: "Instilling common sense in children and teaching them to be aware and not to divulge their private information easily is a must. You need to drill certain things into their heads without causing excessive fear or paranoia. "You can only do your best really," he admits. In-focus parenting Khalil Al Beloushi is a father of five children, the eldest of which is 13. He believes keeping children safe, both on and offline, boils down to parent-child relationship. "It is important for parents to raise their children as friends in this day and age because the young generation is a lot smarter than we were at their age," he said. "They have quick access to information, much easier than we ever did in our time." He added when it comes to keeping tabs on his children's Internet usage, one tactic is to always make sure they log on in high traffic areas of the home. "When they use the Internet, we put the children in places we can keep an eye on them, like in the living room where the whole family sits," he said. "That way they also know they are being watched." He added occasional checkups help with the monitoring of children's online activities. "I frequently check up on their Internet activity by browsing the history just to keep an eye on things," he said. "Also if the children feel that someone is watching them, it will help keep them in check too." Al Beloushi stressed, however, that despite all measures of parental control on his children's Internet activity, communication is a key element he uses in keeping them safe. "It's fundamentally important for parents to make the time to regularly sit and talk to their children as friends, in order to share things and build a trust," he said. "Once sharing of ideas and opinions happens, children will be brave enough to tell their parents anything; because if they don't get what they need from their parents, they will look for it somewhere else." (c) 2012 Al Nisr Publishing LLC . All rights reserved. Provided by Syndigate.info an Albawaba.com company |