Children alone on the Internet – media expert advises parents to be careful – Nuremberg

10.12.2020

Photo: Hans-Jürgen Wiedl, NN
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When cycling, we make sure that you wear a helmet. And when they are out and about in unfamiliar territory, we prefer to explain the right way to the children three times beforehand than let them wander around. But on the Internet we obviously leave them to their own devices too often: 49 percent of parents, according to the network provider NordVPN, do not take any precautions to protect their children online. In other words: every second child decides unchecked what data to reveal about themselves, where and how they register and what content they consume. Even adult and experienced Internet users often ponder whether this or that content is trustworthy and whether they have not given their data carelessly to the wrong person.

The obvious negligence of the parents is easy to complain about and the warning finger is pointed at them with the accusation of “irresponsibility”. But the high number is less evidence of the limitless frivolity of the parents than of the current difficulty in dealing with everything that is connected to the network. And that’s a lot. The overload is near.

Klaus Lutz is therefore by no means surprised by the results of this study. From the beginning, when you had dialed in with a telephone receiver and a so-called acoustic coupler for remote data transmission with another computer, the experienced media educator, lecturer and head of the Parabol media center accompanied children and parents on their excursions into the wide world of the Internet.

Smartphone brings violence and pornography into children’s rooms.

The internet is everywhere

Lutz does not have to think back long to illustrate the increased demands of the present. “It wasn’t long ago that I advised my parents to put the computer somewhere in the center of the hall or in a comparable location. There is an automatic control, because everyone who passes by sees what the child is doing. ”Today Klaus Lutz has to smile at this suggestion, even if it was valid back then. The problem: “The internet is everywhere now. We are completely networked. Laptops, smartphones, but also televisions and game consoles or smart speakers such as Alexa are ubiquitous. ”This makes it more and more difficult for parents to keep track of what and which path their child is currently taking on the“ www ”.

With these pages, children can surf the Internet safely.

Nevertheless, one shouldn’t give up completely, according to the motto: Nobody can control that anymore anyway. “Watch the children, stay interested in what they are doing on the computer,” advises Lutz, himself the father of a now grown-up son. He differentiates between two levels on which children and young people must be protected: the technical and the educational. While the former is about data or viruses, the other is about the time that children spend in front of the devices. Both go into each other in everyday life. Parents should keep an eye on both.

Clear rules or conditions make handling easier and take care of your nerves:. “This is, for example, when you switch off the WLAN from 10 p.m.,” says Klaus Lutz. “But at a time when almost everything is on the Internet, this often means that the parents also sit in front of silent loudspeakers or black TV sets in the evening.”

Fight with technology

It is easier if the children have their own devices. Then there is the family share, through which a parent can regulate what is available to the offspring and for how long. However, anyone who has ever tried to intuitively link the devices can quickly reach their IT limits. Klaus Lutz recommends the website www.medien-kindersicher.de because it contains step-by-step instructions for the respective device.

And when do parents have to release their children into their own responsibility? Media educator Lutz says that the offspring should be ready with puberty. “If you check too closely afterwards, then it’s like leafing through the child’s diary.”