Responsible Surfing

On the earliest days of the world wide web people started to use the internet for self help and helping others. Website, newsgroups, chat rooms, social community groups and blogs have always been a place for people that share the same problems could help each other. People are sharing solution and motivating each other in hard times. At the same time has the web also been a community people become a victim of harassments and people are getting bullied. I recently came a across a talk on experience that women had online. These were women using the internet for various self help issues, sharing similar ideas on e.g. Women’s rights and etc.. Most felt the internet was great place to share ideas, motivate each other, get women organized in groups all over the world. They felt the internet got the women’s voice out from countries that freedom of speech was limited.. At the same time many of those women who used the net to chat and blog about this women’s subject felt that there was too much harassment going on that interrupted they’re chat. They were getting sexual harassed, just because they were women on women’s websites.

The other day I was listening to the BBC on the way home from work. There was an interesting discussion going on, on the good side and the bad side of the internet. I am sorry to say I forgot the names of those who were speaking but remember an interesting story for this subject. One of the speaker told a story of an experience some women had that managed an website for health and beauty. A self help site that was closed because even though it was extremely useful, they just did not „get the pro-ana girls to shut up“ (Pro Ana A pro-ana is someone which promotes anorexia nervosa as noble and good way of living). The internet is similar to all other things it has both positive and negative sides. People in this virtual world will relate to other people on the internet, trust them and open up often more than they would to in real world. The internet makes it possible for anyone to be part of a discussion, but still remain anonymous. This possibility of hiding behind the screen makes us more open and honest about our feelings and problems. At the same time people that have negative agenda can also hide behind the screen, harass people, bully them and almost do what they like to anyone. Also self help sometimes can refer to not just helping people get well but also help people not get well as the pro-Ana’s do.

We cannot close down the internet and we probably do not want to do that even though it has these bad sides, because luckily the good sides are more than the bad ones. Therefore we just need to be more alert for negative sides of the internet so we can find knowledge, solutions, parental control software’s and tools and other ways to get more informed and spread the good word out

Bjorn Hardarson
Clinical psychologist
Director of Responsible Surfing

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More pressure has been put in that Internet addiction should be be addedd to DSM the official psychiatry guideline of mental disorder.  Now The American Journal of Psychiatry has said it should be approved as a common compulsive disorder with excessive gaming, gambling, compulsion to pornography, auction chat and etc. According to the story on sky news Internet addicts according to D. Jerald Block psychiatrist are loosing track of time, forgetting to sleep and isolating themselves socially, develop depression, anger problems and etc..  The report in the journal also describes the Multiplayer games as a „heorinware“.  Block points that in Korea at least 7 people were killed in a internet cafe from cardiopulmonary related deaths due too online gaming.  Block also mention internet addicted are resistant to treatment and there are high relapse rate

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According to juneau empire new bill was passed by the house of state affairs committee that would cut funding for libraries that are not blocking, filtering or monitoring kinds online so they will not be looking at pornography and other offensive material at the library. According to the bill sponsor rep. Wes Keller the bill is a way to protect kids online and therefore create safer surfing environment in libraries. So now libraries need to use parental control software to block filter and or monitor children online so they are not looking at sexual and other offensive website.
Parents have responsibility to block and filter home computers and this bill is set to have libraries to protect children as well and use the parental control software on the market.

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Parental control can probably be defined in many ways. Most important for me as a parent and a psychologist is that in all family parents needs to be in control. I think it is always important for all families to allow children to feel some control have room for their opinion heard but in the end it is important parent gives they’re children the boundaries they need. Children need to know from their parents the rules of the home and the rules of the world. Be polite; eat healthy, respect older people, study to get good grades and so on. They also need to know the safety of the street, watch out for cars on the street, were safety belts and so on. Now there is a new danger zone many parents do not know much about, they are worried about their kid’s safety online. The internet is often considered to be a huge city without any police around. Parents also are getting to know that they are not always there to be this police or help their children in need so to help parents get more control of this new online community and avoiding danger parental control software can be a good option to help them manage their children safely.

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