Off The Cuff

The Dangers In Online Sites For Pre-Teens

Posted by: From Arkansas in Are You Kidding Me?, My Take on Things, What's Your Opinion? on Jul 12 2007

Welcome back!

The trend is growing for online sites that focus on teen and pre-teen people who love to play games and interact with others that are supposedly their own age or similar. It is really an elaborate chat room where the kids can make their own housing as well as keep a pet to raise. Often, the other kids online at the same time look like animals and cartoons. This makes the whole thing a fantasy so that the kids do not see what part is fantasy and what part is reality.

These sites are drawing children as young as 6 and 7 years old on sites that are billed as the next generation MySpace users. Unfortunately, these types of sites are forcing the parents to decide when it is appropriate to allow the children online and where which is right. But it is also making the parents choose to allowthe kids to roam around inside the site interacting with others .

Because of things like the internet, kids are growing up earlier and need to learn the do’s and don’t’s of being online. Not too big a deal as long as they listen and abide by the rules. As you may be aware, many children do not abide by the rules. That would be how predators are able to find these kids.

Experts tell us that this is the future and that we must learn to live with this because it is not going to go away. Kids are learning so many things so fast these days. The problem that I see with sites like these are that some are good for the kids…because they learn so many things that the schools do not teach. They can be friends with someone who is across the country or in another country.

At least one of these sites has ways to deal with chats so that the kids are limited in what they are able to communicate back and forth. That’s good. It will keep the predators from getting to kids on that particular site. The problem is that there are too many that are not that restricted.

I have to say that I guess I am somewhat old fashioned here. I do not believe in the kids living for the computers. They are a fantastic tool for use in many things. They are even a great way to play awesome games. BUT, they are also something that robs the child of being able to thing for themselves. In that, I find danger.

One more thing I wanted to mention here. These sites are not free. They are apparently free to join but require some money to get more involved. What kid is not going to want to be more involved in the site. There is another site that requires a purchase of an animal toy in order to join the site. Each of these toys have a unique number and that is matched with the child when they join the site to play and build a house for the animal which is depicted online in the house.

Now, I am throwing this topic open for discussion. What’s Your Opinion? I want to know what you think about this subject of kids online on sites specifically made for them?

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