Now in the middle of the summer holidays, children across the UAE are spending hours in front of computer screens, chatting online, on social networking sites, gaming, or simply browsing the internet.
But are parents aware of what their children are being exposed to? With inappropriate content available at the click of a mouse and many young people more computer-savvy than their parents, just how safe are your children online?
For many children favourite pastimes revolve around a computer, with some young people spending hours chatting online, on social networking sites, gaming or simply browsing.
But just how safe are children on the internet and what can parents do to protect them from violent or inappropriate content? Gulf News speaks to young people, parents and experts to find out how much time children are spending online and just how safe they are.
Tips: What parents should know about the internet
1. First educate yourself about the internet, then your child
2. Teach children the obvious identity rules, including not posting pictures of themselves or personal details
3. Install an internet filter or family safety software
4. Know the dangers associated with sites your children frequent
5. Teach children what to do if they encounter harmful content on a home or public computer, such as at a school or a library
6. Manage your children's time on the internet.
7. Set specific internet guidelines for your children to live by and consistently enforce consequences, if they are not being followed
8. Keep computers in open areas and out of children's bedrooms
9. Create a relationship with your children that is conducive to open communication
Source: Content Watch
- Compiled by Abbas Al Lawati, Staff Reporter
Chart: Top 10 UAE websites
1. Yahoo! Search engine
2. Google UAE (multilingual) Search engine
3. Microsoft Network (MSN) (English and Arabic)Web services and content provider
4. Google Search engine
5. YouTube Video sharing
6. Windows Live Search engine
7. Facebook Social networking site
8. Maktoob E-mail service and portal
9. UAE Women's Network (Arabic) Discussion forum for Emirati women
10. Ma7room (Arabic) Cars, music and discussion forums
Source: Alexa Traffic Rankings
Entrepreneurs: Cafes do hi-speed business during holidays
Summertime means good business for internet cafe's in the UAE, with many young people opting to move computer time from their homes to a more public space.
Christy Ortilla who works at a gaming cafe in Satwa, says the majority of her customers are between the ages of 15 and 25, who "mostly play games and surf the net." Ortilla says she monitors websites that are being viewed and from time to time if someone is looking at a "sexy lady" website, she simply shuts down the offensive site by closing the application. "It doesn't happen too often," she said.
Bassam Qasim who works at the Cyber Game Centre in Jumeirah says that almost all customers are young people, some as young as 10 years old.
- M.H.
For hours each day
Rashid Hilal, a 12-year-old, says he spends an average of three to four hours each day playing online games, regardless of whether school is open or he is off for the holidays.
Excuse to meet friends
Kambar Bashir, 17, from Dubai, says he spends about an hour each day at the Internet café with his friends now that it is summer vacation. He plays games and chats online with his girlfriend. "We all meet before coming here. I have the Internet at home, but I like to come here to hang out with my friends."
Research on classwork
Indian sisters Shreya, 18, and Mrudvi Bakshi, 7, say they are limited to an hour of Internet a day, but are not monitored by their parents. "We have a dial-up connection so we can't keep the phone line engaged for too long," said Mrudvi. They say that they mostly chat with friends, check e-mails, download music and use Internet for research on schoolwork.
Spending vacation
Iranian Hamed Tingu, 19, says he is normally online for three to five hours every day. During the summer holidays, he spends time at Internet cafes with his friends. "We come to the Internet cafe together in a group, usually four to six of us. We are not in school right now, so we come here instead."
Occupying evenings
Mohammad Al Suwaidi, a 16-year-old Emirati from Abu Dhabi, says he comes to Dubai to see his friends and play online games. They play for up to eight hours each day. In the mornings he goes to the beach or the pool and then heads to the Internet cafefor the afternoon and evening to play.
Chatting keeps in touch with relatives
Karim Rizkallah, 41, from Lebanon and general manager of a technology company, has two daughters Caline, 12, and Elsa, 7.
"At the moment, the Internet connection we have is the Etisalat one and there are processes in place to stop some sites. They filter all the pornographic sites and the sites that could be harmful to children. I have peace of mind here [in the UAE]. In my home country we don't have this filter.
"Definitely [the proxy filter] is not 100 per cent [safe] and you cannot stop whatever comes through e-mails. I don't think there's a filter that's 100 per cent [safe], but for normal browsing it does a good job. From time to time it's best to check what they are doing. Sometimes I check the searches they make and there's nothing I've seen that concerns me ... at school they have research projects for which they can search on the Internet and we have [software for] chatting so we can keep in touch with relatives."
Trips to library to tackle aggressiveness
Umm Ahmad, a Iraqi housewife, is the mother of 15-year-old Ali.
"My son weighs 100 kg and wears thick glasses. He doesn't go out anywhere and doesn't have many friends. All he does all day is sit at the computer and play games on the Internet. If we restrict access to the computer he'll just move on to the television.
"We can't offer him many alternatives. It's too hot to play outside. He doesn't have interest in anything but computers and violent video games, and it's having a negative effect on him, especially his social skills. He doesn't spend much time with the family and I've noticed that he has become aggressive, even violent, with his siblings. He realises [it] sometimes, regrets it and goes back to the computer.
"My husband and I have decided to take him to the library for three hours every day during the summer. He doesn't want to go but he'll have to."
Let children talk about harmful stuff
A 34-year-old Briton works in the advertising industry and has a 10-year-old daughter and a four-year-old son.
"My daughter has just started using the Internet and what she sees is a concern to me. Children are inevitably going to see some of the most gruesome stuff on the Internet. It's a certainty because children are so technologically literate and there's no system for blocking offensive material that's foolproof.
"Even if I try to control what they see at home, they will still be able to see what people might consider bad sites when they are at friends' houses or internet cafes.
"Rather than trying to control what they see, maybe it's better to think about what we can do to make sure they are not damaged by it.
"We should make sure children are comfortable about talking about what they find disturbing. In any case, often young children will look at disturbing or pornographic images and say 'yuk' before looking at something else."
