Life and Internet Safety

I got in a crazy car accident last week. So, for those of you who are in other classes with me, that's why I was not there. It was pretty scary. Part of me wishes it was bad enough that I can't remember it because now I get scared every time I get in a car. Oh well. Eventually I'll be back to normal. I'm not even sure I'm ready to go back to school because I hurt my back and neck pretty bad. I think I hit my head pretty hard too because I get super bad headaches. But I have finally gotten to start on all my catch-up work. I felt the internet safety assignment was a good one for today since the articles we had to read were from past Ensigns.

I taught my husband what I learned about internet safety. He thought it was interesting.
There are two types of internet safety I focused on: moral safety and identity safety.
Moral safety consists of how to avoid the little whisperings of Satan through media,or, in this case, the internet. One common problem is pornography. Pornography does not start with someone saying, "Hey I want to get addicted to porn today." No, it starts with pop-ups, chat rooms, and half naked pictures of celebrities. Little by little, those porn viewers become pornography addicts, and when they realize it, they are in too deep to let go easily. Another problem with moral safety comes from music videos. I know many people think music videos are just "fun." They are not. Music videos contain scenes that desensitize and numb  the mind to pornographic, sensual, and violent images. Ways you can protect yourself and your children from these internet problems are through filters, creating bookmarks to more easily access your common websites, use pop-up blockers, discourage the use of chat rooms, and not to open spam messages.

Identification safety is another problem these days. Some ways to establish your personal safety are to
1. Never use or give your personal information online (name, address, date of birth, school)
2. Do not open phishing emails
3. Do not talk to strangers, and especially do not meet online strangers in person
4. Never give your social security number online, even on job applications.

After discussing these things with my husband, we decided we are going to be better. We will watch music videos less and change some of our information on our social networking sites.