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These stories, published March 20, 1994, are being distributed on line as a public service. Commercial reprinting without permission is prohibited. This file may be placed in forums for downloading provided that 1) the contents are not modified, and 2) charges are limited to connect time. For more information concerning distribution, call Candace Turtle, Mercury News reader representative, at (408) 920-5958, or send E-mail to cturtle@aol.com. ------------------------------------------------------------------ SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS Copyright 1994, San Jose Mercury News DATE: Sunday, March 20, 1994 PAGE: 1A EDITION: Morning Final SECTION: Front LENGTH: 4 in. Short ILLUSTRATION: DRAWING: [Image on a computer screen shows a mother leading her children through dangerous territory.] WHERE ARE YOUR KIDS ON-LINE? MORE kids are traveling through cyberspace, a communications network that will one day influence almost every aspect of daily life. While the potential for educational opportunities is fantastic for children, many parents are not aware of possible dangers along the information superhighway. Are your children getting into ''chat rooms'' where adults can pursue them for sexual activity? Publicizing personal information like your address or vacation schedule? Running up huge bills? Family Reporter Lori Eickmann offers information to help parents understand this new frontier. SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS Copyright 1994, San Jose Mercury News DATE: Sunday, March 20, 1994 PAGE: 1H EDITION: Morning Final SECTION: Living LENGTH: 62 in. Long ILLUSTRATION: DRAWING: JIM HUMMEL - MERCURY NEWS SOURCE: By LORI EICKMANN, Mercury News Staff Writer VIRTUAL PARENTING ON-LINE SERVICES ARE OPENING UP A FASCINATING NEW WORLD FOR KIDS; BUT BEFORE THEY TRAVEL TOO FAR, PARENTS SHOULD MAKE SURE THEY'RE ON THE RIGHT TRACK MARY ELLEN Rose, a Kansas divorce attorney and mother of three, thought she and her family were computer-literate. Rose has used computers at work and at home for a decade, and her children, ages 12 to 17, are proficient at computer games and word processing. But early this year, within weeks of subscribing to a commercial on-line service, Rose, 46, discovered that her daughter Amanda, 12, had given her name and address to a 15-year-old New Hampshire boy she ''met'' in an on-line teen area - and the boy, aided by a 41-year-old family acquaintance, had written Amanda an explicit four-page letter detailing plans to visit her and have sex. Rose learned the man had contacted Amanda through electronic mail and told her he cared for her and wanted to help her and the boy get together. ''We have controls on our TV, and I don't let my kids go to R-rated movies,'' says an exasperated Rose. ''I just never thought of this. I feel so dumb.'' The moral of the story is not that computers or cyburbs -- the virtual communities that have evolved on-line -- are inherently evil. But parents should understand that the on-line world is a vast and alluring one populated by millions of people with interests that range from honorable to unsavory, from educational to downright dangerous. And with more and more children skillfully but often innocently entering this world -- today linking up with computer-savvy pen pals worldwide and tomorrow tuning in to interactive TV - it becomes imperative for parents, many of whom are clueless about cyberspace, to become proactive in educating themselves and their children about life on-line and technological literacy. ''Being on an on-line service is just like being in a big city,'' says Rose, who urges parents to monitor their children's on-line travels. ''You wouldn't let your child wander around alone in a city; you shouldn't do it on-line.'' Jeffrey Chester, executive director of Campaign for Kids' TV, a media watchdog group based in Washington, D.C., stresses that average citizens, not media conglomerates and advertisers, must help design the on-and off-ramps for the data superhighway. Otherwise, he warns,'' children will be the accident victims.'' (box) The system will merge home technologies - including personal computers, telephones, televisions and VCRs - to create a communications network that will influence almost every aspect of daily life. Even now, a California teen can log onto ImagiNation Network, an on-line games and shopping service, and create a face - male, female, old, young, black or white - to represent himself on screen while engaging in interactive role-playing games or chatting with people around the country or the world. It's empowering, enlightening, entertaining and seductive for both adults and kids. On the television end, the oft-mentioned 500-channel interactive television will allow unprecedented access not only to programs but also to push-button shopping, interactive entertainment and other services. On the computer end, the superhighway is already in use. The Internet, a system of some 10,000 computer networks, is used by more than 20 million people. Parents with a home computer can pay bills, make airline reservations, find recipes or check consumer reports or sports scores. They can pose questions on electronic bulletin boards and wait for on-line answers to roll in. And while kids can access university or government libraries, they are more likely to be playing games or chatting. ''It's the mall of the future,'' says Audrey Mann, spokeswoman for ImagiNation. ''From a parent's standpoint, Jimmy could watch three hours of TV per night, or he could have an on-line pen pal he communicates with or plays games with.'' There are thousands upon thousands of bulletin boards and chat rooms for users interested in everything from religion to sex. But Tony Wong, a Cupertino parent of a 5-year-old daughter and 20-year-old stepdaughter, says commercial on-line services need to go way beyond chats to attract the majority of families. Wong, 33, who works in eWorld, Apple Computer Inc.'s on-line services department, reluctantly admits there is little to justify on-line participation by most users. ''There is justification for 10 to 20 percent of the people who can afford it and who understand it,'' says Wong, who uses America Online for his stock portfolio and to look up baseball scores. ''For the other 80 percent, the truth is, it isn't there yet - but I think it will be soon.'' Responding to a reporter's on-line request for parents' and kids' experiences on-line, Wong writes that the commercial services need to offer more educational and parenting content. He also says women and minorities find little aimed at them in the white-male-dominated world of cyberspace. For example, ''you don't see a Las Madres group on-line,'' he notes. ''These are local groups of maybe 15 to 20 people with kids born in the same year who talk among themselves about child-rearing issues. That would be a great service.'' Children and teens confirm they go on-line mostly to socialize. Gianna Cardinale, a 10-year-old fifth-grader from Los Gatos who has been on-line for about a year, says she uses America Online for chats and games, but she has also done research for school reports. She notes that one difference between school friends and on-line friends is that'' on-line, you can, like, lie and they wouldn't really know.'' A 19-year-old from the University of Arizona notes that on-line services have helped gay and lesbian teens who otherwise might feel isolated find support. LeeAnn C, the screen name for a 14-year-old Michigan girl, says communication with an endless variety of people is the greatest thing about going on-line. ''There is no way that if I was in a room with 23 people that I didn't know that I could possibly feel comfortable,'' she writes. ''This way, you can really feel comfortable just to talk to people about anything.'' For example, some of the topics listed one recent afternoon in Teen Scene, home of teen bulletin boards for America Online, included: baseball, 11 messages posted; drugs and booze, 27 messages; censorship, 30; teen vegetarians, 37; books, 33; poetry, 232; liberal teens, 21; conservative teens, 120; atheist teens, 142; Christian teens, 215; Satanists, 45; gay, bi and lesbian youth, 151; and on-line romance, 247. The positive aspects are so numerous that many people believe that fears about on-line dangers are exaggerated. Karen Coyle, of the Berkeley chapter of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, says commercial on-line officials and users monitor adult bulletin boards or chat areas to weed out youngsters. ''The dangers are in the local bulletin boards, the small ones listed in the computer freebie papers,'' says Coyle, who works in the library computer system at the University of California, Berkeley. Some of these boards, originally started by hobbyists, can be X-rated - including the likes of bestiality and kiddie porn - and are not monitored like commercial services. ''Sure, teen boys will figure out how to get into them, but those same boys will go to the drugstore and buy a dirty magazine,'' Coyle says. ''Kids are going to talk about sex anyway. Compusex - it can't get any safer, there are no fluids being exchanged!'' Still, it is general knowledge that women of any age who are on-line are often targets of sexual comments ranging from mild come-ons to overt propositions. The majority of on-line users still are male; industry officials believe men outnumber women by about a 4-to-1 ratio. However, the anonymous nature of many services allows anyone to pretend to be of the opposite sex, a different race or any age or profession they choose, making it difficult to know whom you are dealing with. Industry officials say many sexual chat areas or message boards that may not be appropriate for children can be electronically blocked. ''It's not censorship,'' says Pam McGraw, a spokeswoman for America Online, addressing a fear of many on-line enthusiasts that - as with the recent debate over television violence - the government may try to meddle. ''It's an option for parents . . . to be able to restrict access by children.'' Still, there are kids like Jason Hennessey, a 15-year-old Massachusetts sophomore who was on-line only two weeks when he set up access blocks on his own account - and then broke them. ''It's so easy to figure it out,'' says Jason, who says he taught himself everything he knows about computers because his parents are technophobes. ''It took me about five minutes.'' Which is precisely why parents need to be knowledgeable about the on-line world. ''I don't think most parents have a clue about what's available on video games, computer games, on-line games and, eventually, interactive TV games,'' says Johnny Wilson, 43, editor of Computer Gaming World. ''Parents should spend some time playing these games with their kids. Even if you just watch, you'll be aware of the potential positives and negatives.'' Hilarie Gardner, 38, an employee of the Sausalito-based Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (The WELL), who has led workshops on her own on computer safety and security, says that since parents can't shield children from everything, parents should strive to ''give tools, not make rules.'' Gardner explains that when her children, ages 10 and 13, began going on-line two years ago, she talked to them about how to handle sticky situations. ''When my daughter was 12 and she got abusive comments from another kid, she told him to stop, locked him out and sent the (abusive) message to the systems operator,'' Gardner says. ''I was proud of her for doing that.'' Marc Siegel of Mountain View, a consultant who helps teachers learn how to use the Internet, says parents' and teachers' fears about the potential for on-line debauchery can prevent them from seeing the value of the medium. ''The networks can be a great resource, tremendously useful in education, Siegel says. ''It has the ability to make learning part of the real world.'' For example, he says, one program allowed students to tap into a project by NASA researchers in Antarctica. The students read the researchers' diaries on-line, asked them questions and got answers. ''Some middle-school girls got really interested in science,'' Siegel says. ''The (research) team leader was a woman.'' At a recent exhibit on the data superhighway at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, students could tap into the University of Michigan to see moving weather maps, then link up with the Lawrence Berkeley lab to learn about Bucky Balls, the third known form of pure carbon. Howard Rheingold, editor of Whole Earth Review and author of ''The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier,'' credits the data superhighway with nothing less than the ability to strengthen our democracy - if the technology allows people to communicate actively with each other rather than just passively accept information generated by government or business. ''Games, home shopping, 500 channels - no, that's not all there is,'' Rheingold says. ''Inherent in the technology is the possibility of one household uploading information to another household, not just receiving information from a media conglomerate. I think we should be the originators as well as the receivers of information. ''The question is,'' Rheingold continues, ''will we have 500 lanes coming in and a footpath going out? The whole idea of a democracy rests on individuals communicating with each other. Public discussion - that's what bulletin boards are all about.'' Chester, of Campaign for Kids' TV, charges that the superhighway is being designed to ''meet the needs of the advertising community, not support a democracy.'' He warns that the 500 channels could translate into one long infomercial unless the government designates a percentage of channels as non- commercial stations aimed at parents, children, seniors and community groups. ''Your kid is watching 'Ren and Stimpy' on Nick and a notice flashes on the screen saying, 'Press this button and you'll be sent the dolls or the complete set of videos,' '' Chester says. ''Parents and schools will have to do a lot of work to prepare kids for this. We need to help kids understand these new things are being designed to sell. California has lagged behind in media literacy.'' Chester and Rheingold urge parents and teachers to get involved now, while policy issues are being debated. ''Parents, the PTAs need to empower themselves to help redefine communication in the next century with our kids in mind,'' Chester says. ''Parent groups need to become activists on this issue. ''We live in a media environment,'' Chester says. ''We care so much about the rain forests and the oceans, but we care so little about the media environment.'' SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS Copyright 1994, San Jose Mercury News DATE: Sunday, March 20, 1994 PAGE: 1H EDITION: Morning Final SECTION: Living LENGTH: 14 in. Medium SOURCE: Lori Eickmann TEACH YOUR CHILDREN THE RULES OF THE ROAD BEFORE THEY LOG ON HERE are some on-line safety and etiquette tips, courtesy of on-line service officials, a Prodigy brochure and several experienced users: Safety and security Set basic safety rules before children go on-line, and review the rules from time to time. Keep up with what your children do on-line and familiarize yourself with the areas they frequent so you'll know what they're likely to encounter. (box) Warn children to NEVER send personal information when chatting, sending e-mail, posting on a message board or doing a user profile. That includes phone numbers, addresses, passwords or information such as when parents get home from work or when the family is going on vacation. (box) Don't allow children to go on-line unsupervised if they're not old enough to go out to public places unsupervised. (box) When choosing a password, make it a combination of upper- and lower- case letters, or incorporate numbers to make the password more difficult to crack. Tell children to protect their password by not revealing it to anyone or letting anyone watch them log on. Change the password occasionally. (box) Find out if your on-line service has features that allow parents to block children's access to adult chat rooms and other such features. Social dangers, responsible behavior Talk to children ahead of time about unpleasant situations they may encounter, and brainstorm for ways they might handle such situations. Teach kids to lock out instant messages from people who are bothering them, and tell them to report inappropriate language or comments to you and to on-line service officials. The other side of the coin is that kids should be taught not to engage in inappropriate behavior on-line themselves. It is as unacceptable to curse at someone on-line or invade their private files as it is to scream epithets at someone in person or to break into their house. Treat the humans sitting at the other terminals with respect. (box) Inappropriate behavior includes harassment (unwelcome comments or language), flaming (emotional written attacks) and stalking (someone watching or following someone else). Also, writing in capital letters is the on-line equivalent of shouting and can be rude. (box) A possible danger is that children may feel they know someone they've become friends with on-line. Remind children that when people can create screen names and personalities and even faces, they may not be who they say they are. (box) Addiction -- spending unreasonable amounts of time and money on-line -- is a very real danger for some people. Many kids go through a phase of spending what seems like every waking moment on-line when it is new to them, but the interest usually drops to a more reasonable level after a while. Set time limits for being on-line from the start, for your children's sake and for the sake of your budget.