A recent “Globe and Mail article on Cyber-Safety”:http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060508.gtonline08/BNStory/Technology/ for children has me concerned. Seems that parents are being advised by Lianna McDonald to use the ole’ “lock down” approach to managing their children’s Internet activities.
As a psychotherapist and parenting expert, it has always been my advice to prepare children for life rather than protect them from it. When we use our adult power to control children we invite rebellion, deceit, sneaking and lying. Parents impose rigid rules in an attempt to regain control of their children when they feel they are losing control. Ironically, by trying to re-gain control in this manner, we actually loose it further!
Many parents today do have an inferior knowledge to their children when it comes to the Net. Their fear is only further fuelled by scary media articles that magnify the rare but extreme case such things as child murderers.
Perhaps better a action step for concerned parents is to share the educative process with their children. Learn together where the potential threats lie. Work collaboratively to set mutual guidelines that incorporate what you have been learning about Net safety together.
Why?
One Degree Posts
My mom is not what you’d call a geek, or even someone who is really interested in computers or the Internet.
She works for an HMO in the US and uses the computer for work-related tasks and email. She also keeps up to date on her favourite tennis players at the US Open site and forwards me funny photos of cats, but that’s about it. She does 100% of her Internet activity at work because she doesn’t have a computer at home.
I looked into getting her Internet access at home last year, but she lives in a rural area in Pennsylvania. Dial-up is still the norm and *that* is a level of technical support I don’t want to provide long-distance. It is surprising to me how many places in the States still don’t have access to broadband. According to some recent ComScore data I’ve seen, 77% of Canadians use broadband while only 53% of Americans do! (Q3 2005 data). That’s something I definitely take for granted being up here.
But, back to my mom. Her workplace has slowly been implementing security measures on their computer networks. And they have recently introduced some network sniffers to monitor for illegal downloads. Now my mom doesn’t know how to download music or movies, either legally or illegally. So imagine her surprise when her boss burst into her office one morning and announced “Network Security has found illegal files on your computer. You could be fired!!” and stormed out.
Lately I have signed up for a few new email lists and even made some online purchases from companies I have not dealt with before. What never ceases to amaze me is how many of these companies (almost all in this case) drop the ball when it comes to their confirmation email.
I am surprised at how many of these confirmation messages arrive in my inbox – some right away (great) and some many hours, or days, later (bad) – and are just form text messages that everyone else gets.
*Wake up marketers, you are missing the boat!* There’s a potential gold mine waiting to be uncovered here.
When you have captured someone’s interest enough that they have taken the time to sign up for your communications or, better still, bought from you, reward them. Delight them. Exceed their expectations.
How?