Post 1 - Teenage and Social Issues

Here is the article (I cannot give you a link as it requires you to log in to view the page)

School's out, Internet safety classes are in

Section:
Gen Y

By:
DEBBIE YONG

Publication:
The Straits Times 25/11/2007

Page:
49

No. of words:
631

More parents are attending workshops to learn how to keep their children safe from online dangers

'TIS the season for trouble-making.

As teenagers are left at home alone and unchaperoned in front of their computers this school holiday, more worried parents and educators are signing up for Internet safety courses to guard against the dangers that lurk online.

Just last month, lab technician B.H. Tan, 49, was using his family computer when he discovered several pornographic links in his Web browser's history folder.

When he questioned his two sons, aged 14 and 13, about it, neither of them owned up.

So Mr Tan signed up for an Internet seminar conducted by the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore last

Saturday to learn about how he could block access to such sites.

He said: "Naturally, we were quite concerned as parents but it's sometimes more difficult for parents to tell the kids to stop than to let the experts do the talking."

Mr Tan and his family of five were among 200 seminar attendees who sat through talks by a lawyer and several representatives from Microsoft, eBay, the Internet Industry Association of Singapore and the Internet Federation of the Phonographic Industry, an international organisation responsible for taking legal action against unauthorised file-sharing.

Said another parent at the four-hour seminar, sales support secretary Maureen Koh, 42, who lets her two sons have "uncontrolled" use of the computer during the holidays: "My sons tell me that all their downloads are legal, but we really don't have the time to watch over them every second to make sure that they are not breaking any laws."

Besides ad hoc workshops run by firms and schools, four-hour Cyber Wellness workshops for parents are organised monthly by Touch Cyber Wellness and Sports (TC&F), a service of Touch Community Services.

Explaining the slight increase in the number of parents phoning in to enquire about TC&F programmes during the school holidays, Mr Poh Yeang Cherng, the manager of TC&F, said: "The end of the year is also when exam results are out, that's when parents realise the extent of the problem."

Mr Poh, who has been heading the service since its inception in 2001, said that issues such as extensive gaming and safety on social networking sites and chatrooms are perennial concerns, but more parents have been requesting coverage of topics such as blogging and cyber-bullying.

Said Madam So Mun Yee, vice-principal of Tanjong Katong Secondary School, which has been working with TC&F to organise workshops for parents for the past six years: "Our children are only with us during school hours, so it is important to work in partnership with parents to educate students on staying safe on the Internet all year round."

One previous participant of the school's seminar, businessman Teh Thien Yew, 52, is doing more than educating just his own two teenage boys this school holiday.

Two weeks ago, he grouped together four boys from Tanjong Katong Secondary School's football team, which he helps oversee as a parent-volunteer, to do a project on cyber-bullying.

The boys meet before their twice-weekly soccer practices in the holidays to discuss information on the topic which they gathered through surveying friends, school counsellors and researching the Internet.

Their intended product: a 16-page handbook with tips on identifying and avoiding cyber-bullying. Five hundred copies of it will be distributed to Secondary 1 students and their parents at the start of next year.

Said Mr Teh: "The reality is that most students will stay online in front of their computers during the school holidays. We can't stop them but we can at least educate ourselves on what they are getting into.

"Most parents roughly know but don't know enough, and that may not be wise enough."

debyong@sph.com.sg

'The reality is that most students will stay online in front of their computers during the school holidays, we can't stop them but we can at least educate ourselves on what they are getting into.'

– MR TEH THIEN YEW, 52, father of two teenage boys

My Views

One of the greatest inventions of mankind is probably the computer, but at the same time it is also an evil because of the social problems it creates. This article basically tells us about the concerns that parents have with their teenage excessive exposure to being on-line and the problems most teenagers face with the internet such as, pornography, gaming addiction, illegal downloading of media, cyber bullying, etc.

I agree with this text that there are many teenagers getting themselves into the traps of the internet. The main issue in this article is that teenagers are falling for the traps of the internet and their parents are resorting to attending workshops to learn how to keep their children safe from online dangers. From this article, we can infer that there are all sorts of problems teenagers face while using the internet and that the parents are trying to stop it. In the article, it states that there are parents resorting to going to workshops to learn how to keep their children safe from online dangers. This is in fact, true because I know several parents who do go for these workshops because they are afraid for their children being in danger of the internet. Some of these parents are afraid of their children getting addicted to gaming while some are afraid that their children are hooked on to pornography or getting bullied online by other interent users. This is a real problem as it can lead to worst consequences such as failing of examinations, meeting the wrong people, running away from home or even doing things against the law.

I, myself was once addicted to computer games and it led to me failing in many school subjects and also doing badly in my sport, sailing. My self-esteem got lower, did not want to go out together with my family; just wanted to stay home to be in front of the computer because I could not stop playing only until it was at about 2 - 3 in the morning. Fortunately, I have very caring and understanding parents who advised me and constantly remind me of the dangers of addiction, how it would ruin my future, my life. Being addicted to the internet is very easy, but trying to kick it is extremely hard. i recently took up a sport that I really enjoyed in which I think I can excell in and it is at least helping me to cut down on the time I spend in front of the computer. I personally feel that those boys from the soccer team in Tanjong Katong Secondary School are doing the right thing by targeting the young (secondary ones) to teach them about the dangers of the internet. I also feel that there should be more workshops for internet addicts rather than more workshops for the internet addicts' parents.

I strongly feel that all parents, like my parents should play a major part in helping their child from getting addicted to the internet . One good tip for getting yourself out of addiction from internet is to find something that you have a lot of interest in to replace the internet. My cousin was once addicted to on-line gaming and nobody thought he could be saved but ever since he started a band and met his girlfriend, he started to spend less and less time on the computer. This is a good solution, but it also must be controlled and not overdone.

(580 words)

End.