My Epic Journey

Came across this great article from the guys at www.xxxchurch.com.  I will be mentioning this at our P.A.T.H. meeting this Sunday (3:00–4:45 @ Grace Point Community Church).

Did you get your kids Porn for Christmas?

By Kevin Outland

I bet you never thought to ask yourself, “Did I get my kids porn for Christmas?”. I’m pretty sure you didn’t wrap up a stack of Playboy magazines and put them under the tree or put porn DVD’s in your kids stockings. Or did you?
Sometimes we don’t think or don’t know about the unintended consequences of the gifts we give our kids. For instance, did you get any of your kids a new cell phone for Christmas? Does the cell phone have Internet access? If so, you gave your kids porn for Christmas. Did you get any of your kids the iPod Touch for Christmas? If so, you gave them porn for Christmas. Did you get your kids a new computer for Christmas? If you didn’t buy a filter to go along with it, you gave them porn for Christmas. Why did I pick Cell Phones, the iPod Touch and Computers? They’re popular gifts and can crack the door open to the world of porn.
Cell Phones: Most cell phones have Internet access and filtering porn on cell phones is a real challenge. Some cell phone carrier’s, like AT&T or Verizon, have parental controls available but you may have to pay extra (AT&T charges $4.99/m per line) for the service and each cell phone may have a different way to implement the filtering. So grab your kids Christmas cell phone, call your carrier and find out how to block porn and other inappropriate websites on their phone.

iPod Touch: The iPod Touch has parental controls but it’s pretty much having Internet access turned on or turned off. So grab your kids’ iPod Touch, access the Parental Controls and turn off the Internet. There is a company, SafeEyes, that’s coming out with Internet filtering for the iPod Touch and the iPhone. So when that comes out get it so your kids can safely surf the web on those devices. For more information about this mobile Internet filtering software from SafeEyes follow this link: www.safeeyes.com/iphonedemo.

Computers: Without Internet filtering software on your kids PC they can access a ton of porn and other inappropriate content. And if you got them a laptop they can access that type of content just about anywhere. So grab you kids PC and load up an Internet filter from SafeEyes by clicking here. Then go download X3 Watch from XXXChurch for extra protection. It’s not a filter but will tell you, via email, if your kids are going to inappropriate websites (click here).
Now that you have a little more information ask yourself, “Did I get my kids porn for Christmas?” If so, now you know what to do to make your Christmas gifts porn free.

An recent article in Business Week addresses the concern many parents and youth workers have about their students spending LONG hours on the internet/gaming.

Here is a clip from the article:

Effects of Digital Immersion

O’Shea is a shining example of a generation that thinks and learns differently from its forebears. The differences stem from their immersion in digital technology. By the time they’re in their 20s, the Net Generation, as I call them, will have spent more than 30,000 hours on the Internet and playing video games. This is happening at a time when their brains are particularly sensitive to outside influences, and it has changed their mental reflexes and habits, the way they learn and absorb information.

Many critics think all this exposure makes young people dumb. One criticism, for instance, is that young people are reading far fewer books of literature than they once did. I think the decline in reading novels is a shame, but it does not make them stupid. As O’Shea’s example shows, the digital world provides new ways to learn that can potentially make this Net Generation the smartest ever.

Scientists are beginning to document the traces that the Internet leaves on sensitive young brains. People who play a lot of action video games, for instance, process visual information more quickly than people who don’t, according to a seminal 2003 article in Nature. (The study was initiated by a pre-med student who stayed up all night playing Counter-Strike.)

Digital immersion affects the Net Generation in other ways, too. They don’t necessarily read from left to right, or from beginning to end. They’re more sensitive to visual icons than older people are, and they absorb more information when it’s presented with visual images than when it’s offered in straight text. This may help them be better scanners, a useful skill when you’re confronted with masses of online information.