Life used to be a lot simpler! (Internet Safety...Sort of)

I'm old enough to remember when "safe" was achieved by telling my mother at whose house I'd be hanging out! Of course, all the moms on the street and the moms of friends around our small town kept an eye on us. We didn't get away with a whole lot! It was all a real, physical world. If there was an unknown (or sometimes known) person hanging around, they were visible. Everyone could see them.

That was a simpler time. With the growth of the Internet that safety and relative security of decades past is gone. The dangers, whether to one personally or to one's business and financial affairs, are alarmingly many. They are invisible and intangible. We hear so often on the news of people, both young and adult, who have been lured to meet strangers they have been communicating with online with horrifying results. Who hasn't personally experienced or had friends or family who have experienced the fraudulent use of credit cards and bank accounts? The incredible and immediate access we now have to so much useful information and entertainment online is wonderful. Unfortunately the same electronic network that makes this possible is also the means to a proliferation of illegal and unethical practices.

As the father of two now grown children I know that saying it is the responsibility of the parents to teach their children about Internet safety is a lot easier said than done! Although my kids can't conceive of the concept, I was once a young person! I know what my parents told me to do and not to do. I also know what I did. The two were not always in synch! Did it matter that I sometimes took a very long way around to get the friend's house where I said I was going? I guess that depends on whether the long way around meant riding my bike across planks spanning a river while the new bridge was being built was considered dangerous or not. I didn't think it was. My mother would undoubtedly have had a different opinion. It's the same with what we tell our kids about being safe when they are online. Our years of experience as adults affect our perceptions of what is safe when we're online and what isn't. Our kids don't have that same range of experience to use when making their judgments on what is safe online. It's a pretty scary time to be raising kids. It gives me no small amount of apprehension to think what it will be like for my kids when they are raising my grandkids!

As a rule, I am pretty careful about the personal information I give out online. If I'm ordering something and have to put in credit card and personal information, I always check for the 'https' in the address box first. I have different email addresses that I use for different purposes which helps me decide on the legitimacy of the requests that come to me by email. I delete without even opening any emails in any account that don't come from a source I know. There's probably a lot more I could do but I feel I'm making some good decisions about my online activities.