This question intrigued me since the day I fell in love with the Internet. As the pioneers of the Internet, how would you describe it to your child/younger generation?
The Internet is a fantastic place. It's like being in a huge building crowded with people you may or may not have met before. Information is given out like fliers from workers advertising their stores.
This building have many floors too. The first floor comprises of every single one of us wonderful folks using the internet for leisure. Here, people chat amongst themselves and many new friendships are made. Social Networking websites accelerate the process of making friends, similar to broadcasting your name and position out via the loudspeakers in the building. People will get to know you and hopefully befriend you.
However, many types of people exist on this floor of the building. Majority of the people here are the 'normal' people, using the Internet for what it is meant for. Some people are the 'liars'. They disguise themselves and prey on other people. Also, a large portion of the people are the 'intellectuals'. They use the Internet to spread their knowledge of their majors and use the Internet as a form of research material. Finally, we have the 'gamers', who need no explanation as you are one yourself.
Booths are set up in this floor where people freely trade/give information and sometimes even goods (but your generation might not see it anymore... fuck SOPA). Here, you can obtain anything you want rather easily.
On the second floor of this building, people engage in trades. Companies set up shop here and invite people from the first floor to browse their goods and conveniently buy some. As bad people exists everywhere, there are 'frauds' lurking around on this floor. They disguise themselves as traders and hook you into buying their 'goods'. Once you pay them for the goods, they will disappear from your lives forever.
On the basement of this building, bad things happen. It is commonly called 'underwebz'. Here, anything of any sort happens. Drug trafficking, murder, etc. This is a very dangerous place to go to, hence the very short introduction about this place.
Hygiene is very important in this building. You can put on 'antivirus', which prevents anyone from spreading 'viruses' to you, causing you to go sick. Do note that the stronger the 'antivirus', the lower your chance of getting a 'virus' after a walk around this building. Just like real life, there are people who deliberately want to make your life miserable. They spread viruses to you on purpose or control your body in a process called 'hacking'. This is where the attacker copies all the information stored in your brain and possibly shuts down your system. Watch out for them.
There are many forms of protection that can be used in this building. People likes to turn 'invisible' by putting on a 'proxy', which scrambles all information about that particular person, rendering him invisible.
That's a brief description of what you can do in the Internet. Go out and explore it yourself!
A place where you can find, create or maybe even talk to people about information on almost anything. It can also be used for shopping and many other things. There are lots of bad things out there too, so you have to be very careful. Come to me if you have any issues.
The internet is a communications tool used the world over where people can come together to bitch about [things] and share pornography with one another.
See what I'm looking at right now? Anyone else in the world can look at the same thing on their computer because it's on the internet.
Auntie Kristy is in Africa so we can't see her very often, but we can talk to her through the computer because of the internet. You can do things through the computer that we do in town, like shop or play, but it's better to do those things with people together. But for people we can't visit because they're too far away, we can use the computer to see them.
Clarification: this is for a toddler who still can't use the computer. For a kid who can use the computer, there would be a safety lecture.
I love how the author of the topic put a lot of thought and consideration into his version of explaining the internet, and is followed by a bunch of one-liners. 1st page syndrome?
On February 09 2012 23:28 MCMXVI wrote: I love how the author of the topic put a lot of thought and consideration into his version of explaining the internet, and is followed by a bunch of one-liners. 1st page syndrome?
Probably the same way I described the internet to my grandparents:
"The internet is a way to connect many different computers together from many different places. This is not just your neighbors, but also people across town or across the country or even in many different countries around the world. Anything you can do on your computer can be connected with people who are also on their computers. That means you can share stories, check out pictures, watch movies, play games, and so on. People are always thinking of new things to do on the internet together."
On February 09 2012 23:17 village_idiot wrote: There is a place of great evil...
I think that's 4chan - not the internet in general
Me: "This is the internet, all of this can be yours!" Child: "Whoa. What about that place over there?" Me: "That is the land of 4chan. Promise me you will never go there. Promise me!"
I would say it is the last place that which no one can rightfully declare theirs. Land of that is wealthy with knowledge and exists also as an another form of communication
The internet is a place for information. You can find out anything there, including stuff you don't want to know - so I am going to supervise your use of the net until you are older.
I think of the movie 5th element, the scene where she absorbs all of the knowledge from clips of time flashing across the screen. That is the internet.
Never bothered explaining it to my kids, just gave them all their computers at 4 and said figure shit out, much like I did myself when the net was still new (back at a time when 4people chat boards were the peak of technology) didn't take them very long before they started hitting up websites they saw on tv like pbskids to play mini games. Surprisingly knowing absolutely nothing of the internet my kids get less viruses and shit on their comps than my wife does...
my son is 5 years old with a good general idea of the internet and what it does for him in particular. he plays WoW, LoL and sc2 along with a ton of emulators and bf2 offline. this gives him a lot to base his idea of what the internet, let me start with our internet is wifi tether from my phone. he cant connect to the wireless unless im home. he knows his offline games play vs dumn predictable ai. he understands this. he knows when he connects to my wifi and the yellow explamation point disappears from his network connection he is "online" he says "on the internet" he knows he lets him play vs other real kids at there computers at places like his nana's and grandmas. he knows he connects to my phone. which sends signals to the tall towers which bounce signals to other towers and other kids. he knows his games update with the internet from his own experience with WoW and league of legends. id suggest not putting analogys in your discription. just simply the truth. and as they age and can comprehend more. feed the child more information., nvr too little info. they will supprise you how well they learn.
and as for other things like shopping and gathering information online. i would tell my son. that every website which is a different page on the internet. is actually coming from someone elses computer anywhere else in the world. and there currently on the internet right now sending you the pics and all information from that website. each site is like a different computer on the internet somewhere in the world. some ppls computers have pictures of spongebob. others pics and videos of airplanes. games, anything and everything that has ever been made has information and pics saved on someones computer on the internet. a 5 year old with the above understanding would understand this as well. which is all true and unknown to 90% of internet users sadly lol
I suppose I'd just explain how it works technically. Explain IP, DNS and such. I have no reason to believe my children won't be smart enough to know what's wrong and right on the internet. My daughter is too young to care about the internet though. Maybe in a few years.
The internet is the biggest, most modern library in the world. In it you can find the answer to every question you even had, if you search for it in the right way. There are other people in this library, too, and you can talk to them and make friends.Some rooms of this library let you yell out as loud as you can, while others will require you to keep your quiet. There are also game rooms there, where you can play with other people or by yourself. So go, explore, have fun.
On February 10 2012 01:29 FlamingForce wrote: My kids aren't going anywhere near the internet or console of their choosing until they show me they can beat OoT without any help.
a book of everything. a lot of bullshit, but also good shit. there are others that are reading the same book at the same time as you, and you can interact with them, and edit/add things to the book. remember, its a book of everything
On February 10 2012 00:30 aebriol wrote: The internet is a place for information. You can find out anything there, including stuff you don't want to know - so I am going to supervise your use of the net until you are older.
A little bit of heaven, hell, ignorance, love, and austerity all mixed together to form the most disgusting looking bowl of soup ever made. And yet it tastes so good
Slightly off topic, but I have wondered how I would 'regulate' the internet for my children. I don't want to be the dad that completely blocks his children off from the internet entirely since it's such a huge part of life now, but at the same time total internet freedom can lead a kid to very wrong places. Last I thought about this I decided I would simply accompany/keep a close eye on my children as they use the internet as they grow up, guiding them on how to use it etc etc.
How are current parents of growing children dealing with this?
How I describe the internet to them would vary depending on why they asked, at what stage of education and development they are at, and how much time they want to spend on the question. I could go into as much technical detail as they wanted or talk about the societal role of the internet or just tell them it's made of tubes if they're being stupid.
Firebolt415: I'll set up their first e-mail and social networking accounts to ensure adequate privacy, give them full control and withdraw from supervising them when they demonstrate that they are capable and willing to protect themselves (by not posting their phone number publicly, for example), and be open to talk to them about anything they encounter while exploring. I'll show them how to use the various online tools my parents showed me - how to search optimally, cloud storage, video chat - and newer tools that I've taught myself.
My parents did this, and stopped supervising when I was 6 or 7. They also stuck a curfew on the router for a few years (11pm-5am).
"What we have come to call the Internet is a global meta-network of computers for the bi-directional exchange of information by means of a standardized protocol suite."
Yeah, if I had a child it would be pretty smart. So what?
I am not sure how I would explain it, but I do know how I would introduce it to little Hawk Jr.
I remember once reading about some artist whose father let her drink some strong booze at a young age so she got sick enough to basically never want to do it again til she was older. When the time is right, I will allow my child to access the computer, and leave it set to 4chan, and never again will I have to worry about them mistakenly stumbling upon the darkest corners of the internet
Do any of you actually have kids? Some of these explanations put me to sleep, or were so ambiguous I'm more confused now then when I started using the internet. I wouldn't tell them anything, I'd just let them use it. I wouldn't censor any of it either, nor would I terrify them about the dangers of it. Honestly, defining the meaning of life is easier to explain to a child than what the net is and how it's used.
On February 10 2012 04:06 -_-Quails wrote: How I describe the internet to them would vary depending on why they asked, at what stage of education and development they are at, and how much time they want to spend on the question. I could go into as much technical detail as they wanted or talk about the societal role of the internet or just tell them it's made of tubes if they're being stupid.
Firebolt415: I'll set up their first e-mail and social networking accounts to ensure adequate privacy, give them full control and withdraw from supervising them when they demonstrate that they are capable and willing to protect themselves (by not posting their phone number publicly, for example), and be open to talk to them about anything they encounter while exploring. I'll show them how to use the various online tools my parents showed me - how to search optimally, cloud storage, video chat - and newer tools that I've taught myself.
My parents did this, and stopped supervising when I was 6 or 7. They also stuck a curfew on the router for a few years (11pm-5am).
They stopped watching you at the age of 6? Really? :/
On February 10 2012 03:33 1Eris1 wrote: A little bit of heaven, hell, ignorance, love, and austerity all mixed together to form the most disgusting looking bowl of soup ever made. And yet it tastes so good
Nice comparison!
I would like to see more detailed posts so I could see more variety in the 'speeches' that you might one day make to your child.
Letting him/her learn by themselves don't sound like a great idea, you do not want him running into some random pedophile who pretend to be a kid.
I'd talk about how I discovered it myself, what I learned from it and all the good and bad things I experienced in it.
Obviously things like critical thinking and subjectivity are needed to fully understand all the crap in here, but you can't really forcefeed such concepts to a kid.
I wouldn't show them the internet until they reach a certain age depending on the child. I mean, obviously let them use i t for great educational purposes, but you don't have to describe the entire thing.
The answer to this question completely depends on the age of the child in question.
EPT
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