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From: "bob&carole" <bobandcarole03@hotmail.com>
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Subject: Why are kids still surfing in the bedroom?
Date: 9 Mar 2007 05:36:31 -0800
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If you have children and you watched any of "Dateline's" "To Catch a
Predator" series, you're scared. You have to be. And you have to
wonder: Could this happen to my kids?
Well, there's one piece of advice everyone gives parents to keep their
children safe from predators and all the other scary parts of the
Internet -- keep the computer out of the bedroom. The advice is so
common, it's now trite.
It might also be the most commonly ignored advice in parenting today.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, twice as many kids have
computers in their bedrooms today as did five years ago.
Forget the bedtime story. These days, many kids go to bed, pull up the
covers and just start chatting with friends online.
Perhaps that explains why so many kids are so sleepy in school these
days. Hard figures are hard to come by, but both parents and teachers
will tell anyone who'll listen that classrooms are full of bleary-eyed
kids who've been up all night text-messaging and e-mailing their
friends. A U.K. researcher recently released a study indicating that
20 percent of children there sleep at least two hours less each night
than their parents, and she blamed computers, games and televisions in
the bedroom.
Unmonitored bedroom Internet access exposes kids to awful people, like
those who showed up at "Dateline's" rented house full of hidden
cameras. But even if you mistakenly believe your child is safe from
predators, a bedroom computer creates another, less dramatic but much
more common problem -- sleep-deprived kids. The U.K. study indicated
that two-thirds of kids are sleep-deprived because of gadgets. And in
preliminary results of research now being conducted by i-Safe America,
22 percent of student-age kids admit they send instant messages while
their parents think they're asleep.
Family therapist Susan Shankle says the problem is now so common she
asks questions about the location of child computers in her initial
client assessment.
"I ask if there are computers in the bedroom, and 'Are you sure your
child is getting enough sleep?" she said. "I always advise parents to
take them out, but often the advice isn't followed. It's a big
problem, and it's only getting bigger."
10 percent of 8- to 10-year-olds have bedroom Internet
Shankle's impressions are borne out by research. The Kaiser Family
Foundation released a study in May indicating that 31 percent of kids
8-18 have a computer in the bedroom, and 20 percent have Internet
access -- double the amount from five years ago. One in 10 children
between 8 and 10 years old now has bedroom Internet access. And 1 in 4
high-school-aged kids uses instant message software in the bedroom.
"It seems to be a trend, and I suspect it will continue," said Vicky
Rideout, a researcher at Kaiser.
Why are parents ignoring the bedroom computer advice, even after
warnings as dire as "Dateline's" predator program's? One reason is
convenience, Rideout said.
"Parents don't want competition for the computer, so they give kids
their own," she said. "That's the main reasons kids have TV in their
rooms, too."
Wireless makes it worse
There was a time when a bedroom computer, disconnected from the
Internet, did not pose this menacing threat. As long as no one strung
Ethernet cable into the kids' room, there was no way for kids to get
on the Internet and no way for predators to get to the kids. But home
wireless networks have exploded in popularity. If you don't have it,
your neighbors probably do. Barring military-grade jamming
technology, there's really no way to keep this floating Internet out
other than keeping the computer out.
Perhaps many parents think they can keep watch over computer use in
the bedroom. Fat chance, says family therapist Barbara Melton. Kids
will go to great lengths to outfox their parents and stay online when
they should be sleeping, she said.
"I knew one 16-year-old who stuffed a towel under the door so his
(parents) couldn't see the light from the computer," she said. "Other
kids dim their monitors.... This might be new to parents, but if you
bring this up with kids, they all know about it."
Staring at a computer is also among the worst things someone can do
before going to bed, Shankle said, because it activates the brain in a
way that makes it harder to fall asleep. She recommended cutting off
computer use at least 30 minutes before bedtime.
Increased restlessness
But that's not happening. Shankle thinks the problem is so widespread
that late-night computer use, fed by the addictive quality of the
Internet, might even be contributing to increased diagnosis of
attention deficit disorders, Shankle said.
"Sleep deprivation and too much computer look like ADHD," said
Shankle.
All this late-night Internet use might seem anathema to some adults,
who couldn't imagine staying up all night to type messages to
friends. But Sandra Calvert, professor of psychology and director of
the Child Digital Media Center at Georgetown University, said
teenagers' diurnal sleep rhythms are quite different from adults',
meaning they are more alert at night. Bedroom Internet access only
fans that flame.
Calvert recommends keeping computers out of the bedroom, but she
thinks it's even more important to teach kids about the potential
pitfalls of being online all the time.
"They're going to have access to technology. If they don't have it,
their friends do. So parents need to educate them and empower them,"
she said.
With handhelds coming, it'll only get harder
That's good advice, given that new technology means the Internet,
increasingly, is not limited to computers anyway. Plenty of cell
phones allow Internet access, video downloads and games. So simply
keeping a computer out of the bedroom will someday soon provide only a
small measure of safety, if any, said Kaiser's Rideout.
"As it all jumps onto handhelds, those rules will be irrelevant," she
said -- making a parent's role in separating the Sandman from the
Internet all the more essential, both to keep kids safe from predators
and to get them ready for school the next day.
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