Dark side of the Web

Basically, nobody can argue today with the fact, that the Internet is an extraordinary tool which has extremely big potential for those who seek knowledge and information. They can also use it to play video games, download music or watch videos. Recently, most of them are hanging on various kinds of social media websites like Facebook, instagram or twitter. However, we must remember that our children are usually very careless, and they might find on the Internet a way different kind of materials that we would wish for them.  Apart from that, the Internet is used by many evil people, who intend to harm our children.
What we should really worry about
One of the most frightening and dangerous things about the Internet is that it is widely used by numerous kinds of sexual deviants like pedophiles. They use different platforms on the Internet, like chats, communicators or social media websites to search for their possible victims. They often try to become friends with children, which may lead to very dangerous outcome, like kidnap. Due to researches made by PCWebControl, there are over one million pedophiles online every day.  Another disturbing fact is, that about one of every ten children have been approached by sexual predators on the Internet. What is even more disturbing, only about 20% of children who have been exposed to unwanted sexual material have ever informed their parents about such situation. It means, that about 3 of every 4 children never said anything about sexual harassment they experienced online.
Bullying online
Another part of the dark side of the Web is called cyberbullying. Over the years, children have always been victims to various kinds of bullying. Either it was at school or after it. Together with the development of social platforms on the Internet, bullying appeared even online.  Some incidents like these may even end tragically, when the children would rather kill themselves than continue being harassed.
Possible remedies
What can we do as parents to prevent such situations to happen? First thing we need to do, is to have an honest and straight conversation with our child about the dangers that may lurk in the Web.  We can show them for example, how they can protect their identity and other sensitive data using simple privacy settings on social media sites or communicators. Next step could be installing parental control software on your computer in order to monitor our children’s activity. Programs like these can offer multiple options ranging from blocking certain websites with content that we will find inappropriate, like porn sites and so on, to setting on time limits. We can also receive daily or weekly reports about all activities done on the computer that has the parental control software installed.
Summary
As we can see, we have plenty of options that can help to shield our children from the dangers of the Web. Most important thing should be mutual awareness about such dangers. Communication with our child should be followed by equipping our computer with guardian programs. Such measures shall make you more comfortable when you know that your child is safely surfing on the Internet.
PCWebControl is parental monitoring software. It is extensively used by both private and public customers. If you want to know more, visit www.pcwebcontrol.com