Do you
know what your kids are up to online? Of course you do! You’ve blocked all the
porn sites, set up filters, and even have a monitoring program to let you know
if your kids are talking about sex, or porn, or meeting up with “uncle bob”
from the chat room. You’re a smart parent, but you'd be shocked if you knew
what your kids were really talking about online.
There’s a new trend popular among teenage
chatters, and your filters won’t pick up any of it. It’s called l33tspeak,
netspeak or just plain internet slang (leet speak from the word elite). You
know what I’m talking about. Acronyms like lol, wtf, bbiab, and nm. Today's
kids are also lazy, and use single letter words: U replaces you, R replaces
are, o replaces oh, m replaces am etc…
Less popular, but still widely used (especially
in games) is true l33tspeak, which involves using numbers instead of letters. 4
replaces A, 3 replaces E, 7 replaces T, 1 replaces L, and $ replaces S. These
are just a few examples, some of it is worse like /\/ and /\/\ , or 13 instead
of B.
Today’s kids are taking their creativity to the
internet, and it’s affecting the way they speak. Kids (just like computer
programmers) don't like to type a lot, so they try to shorten their keystrokes
whenever possible. It's not only affecting the way they speak, it's starting to
affect the way they write. So bad in fact, that school teachers have even
reported seeing “lol” (laughing out loud) turn up on hand-written papers. (How
would you pronounce that?)
Many kids as old as 17 don’t know the difference
between homonyms such as there, their, and they’re. There aren’t too many 17
year olds left who can even spell h-o-m-o-n-y-m anymore, and no it isn’t
spelled with an i. Remember when your high school teachers used to complain
about a comma splice? Today's high school teachers are struggling to teach kids
how to spell, and instant messaging isn't helping.
If you’re concerned about your kids, it’s
absolutely crucial you learn to understand their language. Your filters may
pick up porn, but do they catch the word “pron”? What about warez, which is
short for illegally obtained software.
Another key phrase is the word paw, short for “parents are
watching” or pos for "parents over shoulder".
Every parent should be familiar with this term. Can you think of a non-naughty
use for that sentence? I can’t. Learn to recognize the warning signs and find
out what they're doing that they don't want you to know about.
Sure you blocked porn sites, but what about
Google image search? Any teenager can tell you that online image searches are
the best free porn sites ever. Go ahead, Try It Just type in anything remotely
dirty and see what you get.
So what can you do? Talk to your kids. Get your
own copy of AOL Instant Messenger and put their names on your buddy list. Read
their profiles, you’ll be surprised what you find in there.
Need to find out what they’re up to? Try typing
their screen name, email address, name, or cell phone number into Google and
see what pops up. I guarantee you’ll find your son or daughter’s picture, email
address, and tons of should be private information about them listed on sites
like hotornot.com, buddypic.com, facebattle.com, facethejury.com, or
facebook.com
Does your son or daughter have a livejournal or
a blog? If so do you read it? You probably should. There’s nothing wrong with
reading their diary if they’re posting it on the internet. Thousands of other
people are reading it. How much personal information are they giving to
complete strangers? You'll be suprised.
Please
feel free to see how much of your kid’s language you really understand? This is
a very small sample size, but I think you get the point. Answers are below.
|
Answers:
Travis Christensen, CMHC **Watch for Part 2 of Keeping Your Kids Safe Online next week!** |
No comments:
Post a Comment