By Ingrid Lamb

As many schools and homes throughout the world rush to use Internet filtering systems that block children from participating in sites that post blogs, forums, chat rooms and social networking sites such as Myspace – I would ask if we really need to ban children from these sites?

Online predators, internet fraud, and misallocation of school resources (and time) are among some of the concerns expressed by parents and teachers who may have made the choice to use such software, or to ban youngsters from using these sites altogether.

Short of calling some people technophobes, I would posture that these sites have something valuable to teach young people and those older generations (who in some case are rightly concerned about protecting children from cyber stalkers) might occasionally be going to far - especially if they are blocking out a new form of technology that they don't completely understand.

It's possible that by banning children from these sites, parents and teachers may not be aptly preparing children for the work force and general life. Problems that kids face in the real world, such as stranger danger and bullying are problems that they will have to face in the cyber world as well. Perhaps teaching people how to handle themselves appropriately on these sites from a young age would better prepare them for real life.

Myspace, as well as other sites like Friendster and Facebook, can start off for young people as a way of sharing their interests with their fellow classmates and become a lesson on communicating online. After participating in these sites for a while most people will have grasped the basics of HTML and might even know a bit about using Cascading Style Sheets. At the very least you learn how to downsize photos so that they will fit on a Myspace profile, the use of a bulletin and the fun of writing a blog or leaving a comment on a friend’s page.  

Most work places use the Internet in some way or another now and by the time these children enter the workforce the Internet will be even more widespread. Internal communication methods, such as instant messaging or email are commonplace in the modern work environment. Any experience that young people have gained using instant messaging, forums, emails, profiles, website creation, networking, blogs, online note boards and task managers is going to be useful at some stage.

Children should not just be allowed, they should be encouraged to play with these new ways of communicating in order to prepare themselves for life and experience the “joys of the Internet”.  

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