How many of us have taken note of the early age children now access the internet? What if I told you it is not uncommon for infants and toddlers in the U.S. to be given access to the internet? The relationship with infants, toddlers and the internet can begin with things that seem harmless, like accessing lullaby’s on YouTube, or providing a toddler with content on an iPad or other tablet device where ABC Mouse and Disney are readily available and often entertaining. Now, how many of us who provide internet access to children have trained them in the safe usage of the internet or know anything about safe usage? I suspect the number of persons who answer yes to the last two questions is relatively low. Let me provide you with some tools to help prepare you for early training, and constant reminders as we let our children access the internet. First and foremost, why is safety on the internet important to minor? The internet is a shared space, literally meaning all users are in one place. Consider it a neighborhood with a daycare next to a nuclear waste plant, next to a restaurant and a church. Neighbors, pastors, […]

The internet tells us plainly what it is, a web, a world wide web in fact (thus the “www” indicator) that connects us globally to a shared space. Like a spider’s web, the internet can be beautiful, confusing, complex, and sometimes even dangerous. How and where we access this shared cyber space will helps shape our experiences and define our risks. To access the internet, users will launch an internet browser and choose something known as a search engine. Search engines, including Google, Bing, and Yahoo search and index websites which are on the internet because of links. These search engines will use these links to rank search results according to things like relevancy, inbound links, and keywords. This search is what you have probably heard generally referred to as “browsing.” Browsers search the surface of the internet for various topics. The Internet itself is a large network of billions of computers and electronic devices that contain information and technology tools that can be accessed by anybody with an internet connection, namely using various searches which index the data. Residing on that network of computers are large volumes of documents, related texts, images, and other data which form the world wide web. Many users […]