A School going Teenagers Thoughts about Online Dangers

I recently came across a newsletter of a local Mumbai school- Children’s Academy. I found an article were a “cyber-aware” student shares his thoughts on dangers in cyberspace.

I decided to post his article, ditto(without changing syntax errors or disputing supposed facts and stories- I have added some links though), as it appeared in their newsletter with permission. For the already cyber-initiated this article may appear routine stuff, but then we all know that…………….

……..Children and Teens constitute the largest Internet user segment.

……..It’s Teenagers who have been the driving force behind the huge success of Social Networking sites.

……..It is this segment which usually falls prey to the bad guys lurking on the Internet…the cyber-villains.

In the real world we have Highways with real dangers of crashing and mugging……well there is a stranger danger on the ‘Info-Highway‘ too!!

The article below does not cite the sources of stated facts or surveys and the reader should not take it as some reference source…rather read deeper into what Priyank Nangalia wants to share with his peers. Here’s the article…..

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Ill Effects of Usage of Internet

Hello friends, I am here today writing this article in order to perform the duty of being a responsible citizen and a reader of course.

This article is mainly going to talk about usage of Internet in our day to day life. We all know that Internet has formed a great part of our life. Now, more than television people are addicted to surfing on the Internet. And can you imagine, according to a survey most of the surfing is done by the children between the ages 10-20 years. Now this is shocking, isn’t it? You know, I too am a great lover of Internet. I can’t live without it even for a week. But still, we need to be extra careful while using Internet.

I know, many of you might be using net to complete your projects or play some games or download songs and movies but I am very that many of you might be using Internet to stay in touch with your friends and relatives, right?

Many of you might be having an account on Yahoo,Gmail,Hotmail,Hi5 or even Orkut and Facebook.

You know yahoo,Gmail and Hotmail are one of the safest sites where you don’t have much fear of your Id’s getting hacked. But all the risks turn up with Orkut and Facebook. Yup, one of the most insecure social networking sites. And I am very sure, to show yourselves as COOL, you might be definitely having an account in Orkut or Facebook, or even both.

Guys, if you really want to stay in touch with your family through Internet then you can have your Id’s made in Yahoo,Gmail or  Hotmail because for creating an account on other social networking sites you first need to have an ID made on anyone of these three(Yahoo,Gmail,Hotmail).

I am not saying that avoid these sites totally, but then to an extent try to do it. Because it is something which will in the end leave you totally ruined if you don’t give up its addiction. You might be knowing that Facebook has turned 5 years recently with 175 million users and out of them 25 millions are Indians. The addiction of Internet is mainly seen in Indians, especially teens.

I will tell you an incident which took place with my sister, her account on Facebook has hacked, she was totally helpless and confused, moreover  her account was filled with filthy and rubbish things and after a few weeks, Bam!! Our every file and document was wiped off by a virus which entered in our computer through Internet through Facebook.

We lost our every single file. Our desktop was totally blank, isn’t this scary?

Moreover, recently only a news channel was highlighting a story where a 14 year old girl was forced to take drugs. The report said that she had an account on Orkut, once she got an invitation of an unknown person in her account, she visited the person’s to account and predicted that the person was quite decent. After chatting for a few months, they both decided to meet. After reaching the decided place the girl was shocked to see that the person was actually a 60 year old man, he had kept false images in his profile and when the girl realized it the man beat her very badly as the place decided was a quite one, after that the girl was forcibly given drugs, now this is what is CYBER CRIME. You might be thinking that the girl was a fool who went and met the guy, but then a time will come when you will fall in the same trap.

Now days, even the Mumbai police are visiting many schools to make the young minds realize about these malpractices.

So, at last, lets be a safe surfer. There is no problem in having an account on social networking sites, but then all you have to do is be AWARE and PROTECTIVE. Never add strangers in your account, always tell your parents about every single thing which happens with you on these sites.

So Best of Luck!!….and Keep On Going Buddies!! –Priyank Nangalia

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If you liked reading this post, then please forward the link to your contacts or you may put your message across to Priyank in the comments section.