parents trying to shift the blame?

coming from a generation of people who are pretty adept at using this wonderful technology called the internet it saddened me to see Culture Secretary Andy Burnham discussing the concept of age ratings being applied to websites to ensure that people do not see content that they find disturbing. the focus of this article on the bbc website is the safety of children essentially, but what i would like to ask is what happened to parental supervision? if a parent is worried about what they’re child might see on the internet then they should surely be supervising them?

A poll carried out by the children’s charity in October suggested three out of four children had been disturbed by images they had seen on the internet.

whilst this is all well and good how would an age classification change this? if a child is viewing this material then they’re more than likely ignoring any warnings visible on the sites already and a large red circle with the number eighteen within it probably won’t make a difference. if anything its more likely to spark someone to click the link considering we all know its generally what we’re not meant to do that is the most desirable course of action.

thankfully i’m not alone with my judgement regarding parental supervision. Diana Sutton, head of policy and public affairs at the NSPCC responded to the idea with the following:

“It’s one thing to have a political commitment, but it’s much harder to actually enforce it,” she said. “We want these ideas to have teeth.
“And these mechanisms on their own aren’t enough. They’ve got to be combined with greater parental awareness. Most parents have no clue what their children are up to online.”

so my message is reasonably clear, parents open your eyes, use the technology yourself and be aware that its not necessarily the fault of the website that your child is viewing content that is unsuitable for them.