Kids and Addictions to Computer and Internet

When we talk about addictions, we can describe it as a strong willingness to perform a particular action in order to satisfy a physical or psychical need. It can include taking drugs, smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol or coffee. The biggest group of people that are exposed to any kind of addiction are young ones, especially kids. A lot of forbidden things are the most desired by the kids, following the thesis that “The forbidden fruits tastes the sweetest”. Another reason why the forbidden things are so attractive to the youth is that when some of them try it and show others, he gets a lot of admiration.

Cigarettes, drugs, and alcohol are the most common elements of addictions within the youth environment. At the same time, those are also the most dangerous stimulants available on the market. Some of the mare legal and some not, that’s why very often drug-addicted people have got law problems.

What else?
Besides the substances, many other things can be a source of addiction. Now, in the age of computerization and the omnipresence of the Internet all over the place, new threats arise. Addiction to the computer and the Internet every year is becoming a more and more serious problem. Now about 80 percent of kids living in Europe and even more than 85 percent of kids in the United States have access to the Internet through the computer. Without control of the parents, kids may easily fall into addiction. Too long sitting in front of the computer screen no matter for what reason may result in huge problems in psychical and physical health.

How to prevent it?
There plenty of methods that can be used to limit the bad influence of the computer and the Internet on young people. It is the parent’s task to provide the best environment for kids to study and entertain. Without any doubt, the computer is the perfect tool for learning new things and having fun. On the other hand, it can also become the one and only thing that kid is thinking of, and then the problem occurs. If there is nothing more important for your kid than a computer, it is the right time to start paying more attention to what your kid does there.

The problems regarding the usage of the computer and Internet that are most often identified, are addiction to computer games (especially online), watching pornographic and brutal content, and chatting with anonymous users.

Like I mentioned before, it is up to parents to make their kids understand why the inappropriate usage of the computer connected to the Internet can be so dangerous and what consequences it may cause. Education should the principal goal of the parents. The well-educated kid is able to perform better in distinguishing the good from the bad in the Web environment. Thanks to bigger awareness, the child also knows that playing online games over the night can have bad consequences in the long term.

Another thing that parents can do is providing the appropriate software to support the control. Parental controls are the best solutions in this case. This kind of software is able to track user’s activity on the computer, regulate the time span that users can use the computer. Those programs are also able to block access to websites containing inappropriate for kids’ materials.

Keeping kids secured is very hard work, but it is necessary in order to protect them from dangerous addictions.

If you want to get some extra knowledge about parental control on the computer, feel welcome to visit http://www.pcwebcontrol.com/. PCWebControl is an easy-to-use program whose main goal is to set up control over the computer. It may perform plenty of useful actions that will significantly increase the level of security of the users.