By: Vivian Tang

When a child goes on the internet, supposedly for educational purposes, they most likely will go off task, at least for some time. What if they encounter a cyberbully in a game? What if they get exposed to inappropriate content and explicit material posted on the internet?

Parents must supervise their children’s device usage to protect their privacy and prevent their children from being harmed by the internet.

The internet is useful, but it can also be dangerous. Many people on the internet may want to steal your personal information or just hurt your feelings in general. Cyberbullies may also show the child explicit content at first when the child trusts them. In the end, cyberbullies usually end up hurting their feelings or being mean to them. Children, as we all know, would cry, and the parents hopefully wouldn’t want that to happen. Other than crying, the child might take it personally, and there could be long term impacts to their feelings and more.

If a child gets exposed to inappropriate content without knowing, they might talk about it to their friends, who tell their other friends, and so on. Then, more and more children would know about inappropriate stuff without even knowing it is inappropriate. Sometimes, the child might even mention it in school, and the consequences aren’t light. If someone snitches, the student might end up having detention, or might even get expelled.

Image Credit by Ron Lach