Man forges his own destiny
An old German saying goes "Jeder ist seines Glückes Schmied". Or in English: Man forges his own destiny. In the digital era that means: It depends on you what you get out of the Internet: digital opportunities or digital dangers.
The motto for the Safer Internet Blogathon 2008 "Life online is what YOU make of IT" mirrors the results of an international experts' survey carried out by the Youth Protection Roundtable. More than half of the respondents from 26 European countries locate the responsibility for safe and secure use of the Internet with the users themselves.
Download the complete survey results as a PDF
But not everybody is able to realise the risks of the virtual world and to deal with them appropriately. The more the opportunities grow the more education for digital literacy is needed, for children as well as for adults. All experts, who took part in the survey, agreed to highest priority for children's empowerment and parental control to prevent young people from encountering unwanted and harmful content while being online.
While for adults the Internet has become a part of their life, for young people it seems to be their life. They are really familiar with the Internet and the new Web 2.0 appliances and they have the technical skills to make the best of IT. But do they always know what they are doing there and do they care about the consequences of their online behaviour? We as adults have to admit that we are not fully aware of the virtual life of the younger generation. Having in mind the brilliant contributions of young people to this year's Safer Internet Day Competition I reckon that we need more intergenerational dialogue to master the challenges of the Internet era. Therefore we have invited national winners of the Safer Internet Day Competition for the next meeting of the Youth Protection Roundtable in May 2008 to share with the adult experts their view of the digital life and to discuss which measures would be acceptable to them.
Every child is unique. Let us take joint action to keep them safe while being online. That is the mission of the Youth Protection Roundtable where technicians and pedagogues from 32 European organisations and companies are gathering to learn from each other and to share their knowledge about pedagogical measures and technical solutions like filter software.
The complete results of the survey are available on the project website www.yprt.eu/survey
For more information please mail to kunze@yprt.eu
