Dangers of the Internet
The Dangers of the Internet
By: Mia Bloomer The Internet can be a place to learn, to express yourself, or to just have fun. But, the Internet can also be a very dangerous place. As teenagers we tend to ignore the warnings our parents give us, and act as though nothing bad will ever happen to us. But, the truth of the matter is that bad things happen to ordinary people- especially when we look for it. In the May 22,2002, issue of the New York Times, reporter Corey Kilgannon wrote: By day, she was Christina Long, a thirteen-year-old altar girl and a co-captain of the cheer leading team at St. Peter Roman Catholic School in Danbury, Conn., where the principal said she was a “good student and well behaved.” But in the evenings, the authorities say, she logged onto the Internet using the screen name LongTooHot4u and the slogan, “I will do anything at least once.” In her bedroom, the police say, she used her computer to troll chat rooms and meet adult men for sex, her marital status listed as, “i might be single i might not be.” Early Monday, Christina's body was found in a steep ravine off a country road in Greenwich. She had been strangled, the authorities say, by a twenty-five-year-old Greenwich man she had met in one of those chat rooms. The man, Saul Dos Reis, had had several sexual encounters with Christina, the authorities say, before killing her Friday night and dumping her body.1 While you may think that something like that will never happen to you, it very well could. If you choose to interact with people you have never met face to face before, then what makes you exempt from anything like that ever happening to you? How do you know that the seemingly nice people at the other computer terminal are who they say they are? What gives you enough confidence in their character to give them one ounce of your attention, let alone a significant investment of your time and emotional energies? Can you be sure
By: Mia Bloomer The Internet can be a place to learn, to express yourself, or to just have fun. But, the Internet can also be a very dangerous place. As teenagers we tend to ignore the warnings our parents give us, and act as though nothing bad will ever happen to us. But, the truth of the matter is that bad things happen to ordinary people- especially when we look for it. In the May 22,2002, issue of the New York Times, reporter Corey Kilgannon wrote: By day, she was Christina Long, a thirteen-year-old altar girl and a co-captain of the cheer leading team at St. Peter Roman Catholic School in Danbury, Conn., where the principal said she was a “good student and well behaved.” But in the evenings, the authorities say, she logged onto the Internet using the screen name LongTooHot4u and the slogan, “I will do anything at least once.” In her bedroom, the police say, she used her computer to troll chat rooms and meet adult men for sex, her marital status listed as, “i might be single i might not be.” Early Monday, Christina's body was found in a steep ravine off a country road in Greenwich. She had been strangled, the authorities say, by a twenty-five-year-old Greenwich man she had met in one of those chat rooms. The man, Saul Dos Reis, had had several sexual encounters with Christina, the authorities say, before killing her Friday night and dumping her body.1 While you may think that something like that will never happen to you, it very well could. If you choose to interact with people you have never met face to face before, then what makes you exempt from anything like that ever happening to you? How do you know that the seemingly nice people at the other computer terminal are who they say they are? What gives you enough confidence in their character to give them one ounce of your attention, let alone a significant investment of your time and emotional energies? Can you be sure