My Cyber World

This is our computer desk where a lot of interest in our home is centered. We keep our desktop and a laptop computers here in this space just off our family room. We are able to monitor our children in this scary cyber world we live in. They use the computers for homework as needed, to play games, and our highschoolers, to chat with friends and browse facebook. When limited it is not a bad social option for young teens who you don't want out at night unsupervised, although recently we have limited their time to an hour on school days as it was too much of a temptation when there is homework to be done. I do like that they can get their social fix with friends from the safety of their home as I lurk nearby. "Mom, your a creeper" I have heard, more than once from my oldest son. Apparently this is face book slang for one who frequents your page and or looks over your shoulder. If I'm a creeper so be it, it's part of good parenting in 2010. Just when you think you have it all under control your 13 year old purchases what you think is an ipod with this Christmas money only to find our that he has unlimited access to the Internet, anytime, anywhere, any site. Shouldn't they write that is bold print on the front of the box? Just a little FYI to parents maybe? This was last year and now they have perfected the parental controls and you can shut their access down as an option, which we promptly did after much research and fretting. This year when our 11 year old spent his money on one for himself we were able to immediately shut this option down leaving him with what we thought were game applications and the ability to store his music. We were shocked to learn that he has texting. His is not a phone, but with a free texting application he was good to go. A ten year old friend shared this info with him. We were even more surprised to learn that even though he does not have access to face book via our computer because we feel he is too young and have not yet caved under his begging, on his ipod touch he can go on face book even without Internet access, providing he knows someones password and can then update their status and post photos. Scary on many levels, especially when it is your password he knows. All this technology worries me regularly and keeps us on our toes. Our youngest child, only 8 but quickly approaching 15, is an Internet surfing wiz. We will be creeping on him for years, I'm sure.
You can check out what's going on in other worlds here:http://showyourworld.blogspot.com/.