Is it safe to let children browse the Internet unrestricted?
Absolutely not. There are two things that are big concerns for kids being unrestricted on the Internet. The first one is the amount of time that they spend on the Internet. The Internet can be a very addictive place whether it's playing on-line games or whether it's surfing Internet pages. You can get into a cycle where hours and hours and hours can go by without you realizing it. As adults we've learned to moderate that: stop, get up, walk around, get a drink or turn the computer off. Kids don't have those skills yet and you can really damage a child's ability to unplug by giving them unrestricted time on the Internet. The second problem with having kids unrestricted on the Internet is the content of the Internet. The Internet is an encyclopedia of everything: good, bad, ugly. You can pull up things that would scare your grandmother or thrill your son and you could do it by accident. There are pornography websites abounding on the Internet. It's one of the biggest proliferations of websites. There are also problems with MySpace and stalkers. Kids don't know not to put their information out on the Internet. You can pull up violent video clips or sexually themed video clips. It could be very, very damaging to a young child's ability to process that information.
