Thursday, March 6, 2008

This is the link to the article " 10-year-old Japanese girl behind online death threat":
http://www.straitstimes.com/Asia/Asia/Story/STIStory_213724.html

Synopsis:
The article is about how a death threat was posted on an internet message board by a ten year old girl. She threatened to "kill an elementary school girl on Feb 29 at 1pm". When the police tracked her down, she was sent for counseling where it was found out that the message was a prank. She is "believed to be the youngest person investigated by the police in a spate of similar Internet threat cases in Japan." Her parents were aware of her high internet usage but were baffled by this incident.


I think that this is just one of the side effects of the sudden leap in advancement of technology. As technology becomes more readily available, it becomes an essential part of life and children are learning to use this technology at increasingly younger ages. I still remember only using a computer at the age of 10, and even then, only to go to one website to play a game. But now, take this girl for example, she "is Web-savvy as she has been surfing the Internet at home for the past two years". Which means she started at 8 and she learned not only how to use the computer, but also how to surf the internet. Parents and schools in Singapore have moved "teaching about the dangers of the internet" up in the list of things to teach us. On the list there are other teenage issues like pre-marital sex, teenage pregnancies, smoking, obesity, etc. In fact, the internet is so potent that there are so many sub-issues in it. These include, pornography, proper use of blogs, research, etc.

I feel that Singapore is doing the right thing in emphasizing the proper use of internet resources. For example, the laws against racist comments on blogs. Also, schools are doing a good job by teaching teens how to use the internet for more fruitful purposes like research instead of using them for flaming others or discriminating. The only problem is that these have to be taught at a younger age. Personally, I think that by 12 years of age, most children with a computer at home would have already been exposed to a few of the dangers of the internet. This may also be the cause of more underage sex and teenage pregnancies. When not provided with enough information, teens turn to the internet for answers. And as is so commonly repeated in Research Education in RI, not everything on the internet is true. With misleading information, it is very easy for someone to make big mistakes.

This article shows how young teens and children do not fully understand or grasp the openness of the internet. It is a public domain, accessible by everyone, open to criticism from anyone. In the end, education is still the only way to curb such mistakes.
francys at 6:28 AM