The Internet and its Impact on Society As Taught by Prof. Tim Richardson Outline136 B ©

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last updated 2003 June 24

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Children  and the Net

The number of teenagers and young children using the Internet is also growing very fast  the number of kids online continues to grow from  8.6 million in 1998 to  21.9 million by 2002 (according to Jupiter Communications).  another site claims some 16 million young people under age 18 are online, and over 6 million of these are children aged 12 and under.  http://www.netaction.org/shoppers/kids.html by the year 2005, there are expected to be over 77  million kids online throughout the world   http://kids.surfmonkey.com/company/press/Rel_9-11-00_international.asp   . Generally speaking, it is difficult to find information about numbers of children online because 1. most of the search engine searches about "children online" return information about topics related to protecting children from adult content 2. children are not easily "measurable" as a consumer market due to the fact that they do not often pay for their own items, they are bought by parents many market research formats exclude participation by children

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Children  and the Net

. from  www.grunwald.com/survey/survey_content.html from  www.grunwald.com The Internet gender gap has disappeared. For the first time, girls are on the Net in proportions equal to or greater than boys; and mothers seem poised to outnumber fathers online.  "Education is a key driver for family Internet use today. Parents cite education as the leading reason for getting their kids online from  home in the first place, and both parents and children say that kids spend more Net time on learning activities than anything else. Of  course, communications, entertainment and exploration are also   central online activities" "How do children know where to go? "Word of mouth guides many children to their Net destinations. More kids rely on recommendations from their parents, friends, and teachers than on media messages. But there are crucial differences  by age and gender." .  . .

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TEENS and the Net

Kapsinow notes  "Effectively tapping this market has been and will continue to be the  goal of many Net-savvy e-tailers, especially now that software tools  that allow teens to shop online without credit cards are beginning to enter the payment solutions market. However, as the number of kids online grows, along with the number of sites that target them as  consumers, so do parental concerns about marketers unfairly targeting children and adolescents with seductive advertising. " .  . Another article mentioning this market of 77 million by 2005. One thing that is challenging for 30'something marketing people to figure out is to go back in time and put themselves in the mindset of a teenage - this "challenge" means we can only really guess at the interests of teens in buying online - and what they will buy ; which means a big opportunity for teens themselves to collate and market such demographic info.

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TEENS and the Net

.  . Children need protection online. They are vulnerable in a way which is different than young adults, or older adults .  "in October 1998, Congress passed the Children's  Online Privacy Protection Act. ...the Act will require that all "Web sites that collect personal information from children under 13 obtain prior  parental consent before they collect that information." "Online players that are looking to target these younger consumers risk alienating parents, creating a negative brand image, and fostering greedy consumers," says Anya Sacharow, an analyst with Jupiter Communications Consumer Content Strategies. Therefore, if teens are your target market, then proceed with caution.

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Ethics

Ethics, Morals, "Net Nanny" and other things to limit underage users - read  Web Law FAQ http://www.patents.com/weblaw.sht - read these 6 sections of Web Law FAQ 1.  copying stuff off the Web 2.  scanning images and posting them 3.  using images from other sites 4.  linking to other sites 5.  what you can do if people link to you 6.  how to keep people from taking things from your site copying, permissions, copyright - continue with Web Law FAQ - Free Speech on the Internet article by  Jon Weiner  some people might find parts of this article offensive (this is not "required" reading, just additional perspective) - a leading U.S. website concerned with privacy and free speech on-line  EEF ELectronic Frontier Foundation - see also  http://www.ethics.org/suggested by Paul Both                                                                             (page loads slow) - see alsoCanadian Centre for Ethics - links to Cdn ethics sites http://www.ethicscentre.com/links.htm

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Ethics

5.  what you can do if people link to you 6.  how to keep people from taking things from your site   An interesting, and humourous look at what you can do to prevent people taking stuff off your site, or seeing your code. In truth, there is nothing you can do that works 100%, all you can do is make it difficult, so they will go to an easier target - a basic principle of security. WTGR

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Ethics - protecting online images from being used Here is a good example of how a website [that sells pictures online] protects itself from people taking this pictures for free The technique used in this case is a digital watermark image seen in the picture. When you send in your money, they will email to you the picture without the watermark. "The Corbis Collection is made up of more than 3,000 creative sources - more than 65 million images, 2.1 million online"

Netiquette

- read the articles listed in the Master Site  10 Core Rules of the Internet - read  Adhere to the Same Standards On-line as you do 4 Real Life - read  Respect Other People's Time and Bandwidth - you are welcome to do the  on-line Netiquette Quiz which automatically provides the answers

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E-mail Netiquette             E-mail Netiquette               E-mail Netiquette

"E-mail etiquette is sorely lacking in the corporate world, but have you noticed that technology companies are some of the worst offenders" article in Computing Canada by Grant Buckler October 2002 "Most forms of business communication have been around for a while.  We know keeping someone waiting more than a few minutes for a face-to-face appointment is either a way of showing who has the power, or it's just plain rude.   We have certain expectations about the returning of telephone calls. Most people of my generation were taught the proper way to write a business letter, not that any of us ever write them anymore.  We have a certain sense of what to say and what not to say in meetings and on the phone. If you heard a good joke, you wouldn't think of phoning up everyone you know to tell it to them (though you might slip it into a few conversations).  But with e-mail, we don't seem to know what the rules are. A lack of rules can be a good thing, but not always.  It's safe to say we sometimes need to know what to expect and what kind of behaviour is not appreciated. For instance, how fast should one reply to an e-mail? Some people feel they must answer almost instantly. That might be nice, but will you every get everything else done?"   . This article by Buckler is interesting in the context of the questions it raises about the role of email versus other communications. WTGR .  "...the days of carbon paper. For the benefit of younger readers who never encountered the stuff, this was a flimsy black material that you put between sheets of paper before you rolled them into a typewriter.  Whatever you typed on the top sheet was reproduced on the second sheet, and on a third and even fourth sheet if you banged the typewriter keys hard enough.   The beauty of this was that you could only produce a limited number of copies. At least until the photocopier came along, this  was a strong deterent to sending copies of a letter off to everyone who might possibly care about anything mentioned in it.  Now it's easy to copy everyone on everything, and this has led to such a pile of excess e-mail that Ellwood suggests companies block the use of the 'cc' function on their e-mail software. It would still be possible to copy a message to more than one person, he points out, but you'd have to cut and paste the text from message to message. That would at least make you think about  whether the copies were really necessary. Sounds like a good idea to me."

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Net Culture Net Humour  Chain Letters  Rumours    ;-)

- GIANT list of links from EFF  http://www.eff.org/pub/Net_culture/  - EFF's  Net Culture Humor Archive    - acronyms  BEG - big evil grin, LHM - Lord help me  - discussed in class today  http://www.oakland.edu/~wptornop/hc401/future.htm  - mentioned in class Man shoots computer - man was arrested at his home after he fired eight bullets at his home computer, according to police.  - if you really really hate  Chain Letters  -  Engineer joke  -  Bill Gates goes to Heaven

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this screen capture takes you to a special section on humour

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this screen capture takes you to a special section on travel

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We have our own example of hacked, and original pages which you can view by clicking on the screen capture to the left. Read the story about Columbia Insurance Company and the problem they had with cyber-squatters on their domain

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This is a screen capture that takes you to a special section about web cams. You are recommended to read through this material.

Assignment 2

You have a choice of two different assignment, pick the type which suits you best    Webrings Assignment Special Interest Groups and the Net

"Sex, Drugs, and Rock-n-Roll"

Disclaimer: It cannot be denied that one of the biggest impacts the Internet has had, is on the way Society participates in sexual activities. Some of the leading developments in technology, payment systems and security on the Net have been led by the "Adult" sites.  We will also discuss the Impact that the Net has had on how men and women make contact, using the Internet, for personal reasons. We will not be viewing or linking to Adult sites, only discussing their effect. The discussion will also include how the Internet is used by special groups who advocate the decriminalization of certain drug use (eg. marijuana). Discussion will also include how music groups use the net to interact with fans and how fans use the web to interact with other fans through special "worshipping" sites. None of the sites listed here are endorsed by the professor or Centennial College in any way. Students are welcome to contribute links that may be helpful to the discussions. Links showing violence, racism, or explicit adult content will not be accepted.

"Sex, Drugs, and Rock-n-Roll"

- view site of Wallace and Mangan's book Sex Laws and Cyberspace  - the United StatesCommunications Decency Actis struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court    - a site promoting Speak Freely, Act Responsibly  -  Censoring Cyberspace is technically difficult even though many organizations around the world are trying to do this to protect children from being exploited   - thought provoking article Censorship on the Net. Why do I care? by Bernard Hughes   - a web site devoted to reform of the drug laws  http://www.drcnet.org/- it is a U.K. site   - the WWW's largest site on drugs and drug policy  - interesting on-line essay about the U.S.  War on Drugs

"Sex, Drugs, and Rock-n-Roll"

Rachel Ross,  Toronto Star Technology Reporter wrote an article in The Toronto Star Feb 7th, 2001 titled "Sex, lies and the Internet" Ross explains "More than a million Canadians are looking for love in all the Web places.... says a study released yesterday [Feb 6, 2001] by MSN.ca and Ontario sociologists Dr. Robert Brym and Dr. Rhonda Lenton." The report focused on Web sites devoted to hooking up couples online "at least 25 per cent of those who use online dating services lie about themselves in a bid to seem more  fetching" Does online dating actually result in any "contact"? The survey said "More than 60 per cent of online daters had sex with at least one person they   met online, said the study, which involved 6,500 self-administered online surveys and 1,200 telephone interviews of people across Canada." Honesty: The survey said "the most common lie among online daters concerned their age. Marital status came in as the second-most-popular lie -- 18 per cent of online daters are either married or common law."

"Sex, Drugs, and Rock-n-Roll"

The National Post newspaper also did a story on the survey by Dr. Robert Brym and Dr. Rhonda Lenton In the National Post article we learn that the study was paid for by Microsoft - the people who brought you "HOTMAIL" - which is very popular for people who want anonymous email for romantic contact. "The study is the most comprehensive of its kind ever done in Canada. It was based on 1,200 random phone interviews, as well as a separate online survey of 6,500 people who had previously dated someone they had met online." In the Toronto Star story we learn that " 63% said they had sex with at least one person they had met online" The National Post article adds that "60% formed at least one long-term friendship and 3% had met someone they eventually married"

you should go to this screen captures to the left and read the section on music