The Internet As The Most Powerful Socialization Tool For Young People

If there is one indispensable part of any teenager's life today, it's the internet. In this modern world, people cannot live the kind of life they are living without the benefit of web access. Considering that there is an omnipresent availability and access to the internet in homes, public places, and even schools, children and teens are increasingly hooked on it. According to MediaPost, there was a threefold increase of home access for children in the United States from the year 2000 to 2003. This is a sign of how dependent young people have become on this technology. But just like many things in life, the Internet can be too much of a good thing. Yes, it definitely helps children and teens become more informed and aware of the world around them with the vast array of information and knowledge one can get from it. But having too much exposure can also lead to negative consequences. According to Huston, Watkins, and Kunkel (1989), the exposure to internet and web content is a very powerful socialization agent for children and teenagers. By way of social networking sites, chat, video communication, streaming, and other types of web correspondence, young people have never been this busy communicating and establishing relationships with other people. In the context of knowledge, the web is a ground-breaking tool for teenagers. But when it comes to socialization and behavior, it may inflict negative consequences for them. ParentLink in 2004 referred to the internet as a double-edged sword. While it is a good source of information and knowledge for children, it is also effective exposing children to various types of negative material such as violence, sex, profanity, and more. If you try to connect the dots, you'll realize how vulnerable your children are by the time they access the web. The question is why are they vulnerable? As we said earlier, one of the internet's main purposes is to let people including teens and children socialize and correspond with others. This is why Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace are so popular nowadays. These sites offer the most convenient, friendly, and fun way of communicating with friends. So what's wrong with it? The problem is social networking (Facebook, Twitter, etc) isn't always about building online friendships and relationships. It is also the avenue where criminals such as sex offenders look and search for their potential victims. So if your children use the internet as their main tool for socialization, they might be more vulnerable to different kinds of online crimes like sexual abuse and exploitation, cyber bullying, and pornography. Aside from the imminent danger of abuse and exploitation, the internet is also largely responsible for shaping the behavior of young people, especially on how they respond to their environment and how they socialize and relate to other people. Most of the time, the excessive time spent facing the computer and accessing the net results in the accumulation and modeling of the negative images projected by different websites. For instance, children who love to watch videos or read materials that portray violence and aggressive behavior are more likely to take on an aggressive and violent type of behavior as well. For children who are lured or forced to view pornographic material and sexually explicit content, they may develop a tendency towards accepting and engaging in sex even at a young age. Parents are facing great risks as long as they allow their children to access the web without control and proper monitoring. In the end, the effects may not only be limited to how they socialize and behave in real life, it may also include dangers of sexual abuse, molestation, or exploitation.