Parental control over their children's internet use

Did you know that children are exposed using the internet? As it is common knowledge, the
use of the internet is essential in our daily lives to search for sources of information or
learning. However, many parents do not pay attention to the activities that children do in the
browser because they are working, busy doing other activities, or they are not aware of the
risks of it. Therefore, checking what children are doing is very important and does not mean
that they are being spied on. Instead, they are only having control but respecting their
privacy,interests, and personality. Therefore, the purpose of this speech is that parents know
the risks of internet use. Parents should control their children's internet use to avoid harmful
interactions like cyberbullying, inappropriate content, and a sedentary lifestyle.

First, cyberbullying is the most typical risk of internet use. On the one hand, digital platforms
provide the facility to violate another person's anonymity. For example, many of these acts
take place at school since children who have psychological problems or who suffer violence
at home believe that bothering their classmates is a way to escape from their problems, which
is not the case. Many of the patterns that occur in cyberbullying are public or private
messages on different social networks. In fact, many of these messages may contain insults,
harsh jokes, threats, and may include photos and videos of the victim. Additionally, studies
have shown a high number of suicides among those who are victims of cyberbullying. For
example, the case of Amanda Todd was a young Canadian who, at only 15 years old, suffered
the terrible consequences of cyberbullying as some nude photographs of her were spread over
the internet and people wrote bad things to her and wished for her death. All this led her to
feel cornered and sad and therefore she ended up committing suicide. For this reason, parents
should be aware of their children's behavior on the Internet because their children may be
suffering from cyberbullying and have not realized it.

Secondly, there’s inappropriate content that children can access if they do not have parental
control. "When boys and girls grow up and are presented with their first smartphone,
connections continue to be made on their homes, on a regular basis, taking advantage of
access to contracted internet at home. As it grows, the use of the Internet is more frequent and
the places from which the network is accessed are more varied" (Garmendia, M. Jiménez, E.,
Casado, M.A. y Mascheroni, G. , 2016). In fact, the internet is a powerful research tool but
we have to be very careful with it because if you don't have adequate security settings,
children can access pages that are not according to their age. For instance, when children are
conducting an investigation on the pages, they can get misleading advertising and it can take
them to pornography pages or violent content. To sum up, parents have to use parental
control tools to restrict the sites their children visit and teach children to keep privacy
protected, not revealing personal or family data to strangers or on suspicious pages.

Thirdly, prolonged use of the internet has become a fundamental cause of a sedentary
lifestyle in children. Nowadays, we can see that children from a very young age usually have
the ease and direct access to all kinds of electronic devices that are given by their parents.
(World Vision Costa Rica, 2021)  However, there are many chronic diseases caused by a
sedentary lifestyle. For example, it causes a greater risk of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular
diseases, among others. Furthermore, nowadays children prefer to spend time sitting in front
of a screen playing  video games and  wasting their time. As a result, this makes them
inattentive and unwilling to go out and interact with their surroundings. For this reason,
parents should set hours of internet use for them to not affect their children's health and
development.

In conclusion, parents should monitor their children’s internet use because there are many
risks that can arise with the use of the Internet. For instance, cyberbullying, inappropriate
content, and a sedentary lifestyle. Thus, it is essential that parents are aware of the different
activities they are carrying out and have good communication with their children so that any
suspicious activity that is presented to them helps them in the best way without
overprotecting or hindering their privacy.