News Report #3

“Internet Can Be a Dangerous Place for Children When Unsupervised”
Cathy Koplen, News Chief Newspaper
9/19/2010
<http://www.newschief.com/article/20100919/NEWS/9195029?p=2&tc=pg>

Although the internet has become a necessity to our everyday lives, there are many dangers that lurk for young, unsupervised children. These dangers have worsened, as the advance in cellular technology has made it much simpler for people to access the internet almost anytime and anywhere they may want to. There has been a significant thirty percent increase from 2004 in the amount of American children who own a cell phone, giving people a reason to worry. The Federal Trade Commission is becoming increasingly concerned about the amount of personal information that young children choose to share over the internet which is becoming easier for them to do with the amount of children that now own a cellular phone. The Federal Trade Commission is putting fourth its best efforts to catch Internet predators that are involved in cell phone investigations. Although there is specific software used at institutions such as public libraries and schools blocking inappropriate content, there is no way to completely protect children from the ongoing issue of Internet predators, which is why it is so important to keep them educated and informed about this topic.

As soon as I read this article, it immediately reminded me of the show that I have seen on Dateline NBC called To Catch a Predator. It is not only scary, but also shocking to see the amount of adults that will inappropriately communicate with underage children, knowing the consequences of their actions if they were to be caught. Many times, young children do not see the harm in uploading photos or personal information to websites such as Facebook and MySpace because they are uninformed about the issue of Internet predators or like many other young kids, think they are invincible and that nothing bad will happen to them. Since the age in which children are beginning to own a cell phone is becoming younger and younger, the opportunities for Internet predators to strike are becoming even greater because children are able to access the internet from a cell phone, creating no way for the parent to supervise what their child is doing.

News Report #2

“Tot ticket at library: East Side branch's story time draws mobs”
Jeremy Olshan and Jennifer Fermino, New York Post
9/7/2010


Snagging a ticket to a Wednesday night matinee story time at the NYPL is becoming almost as competitive as scoring a ticket for a Miley Cyrus concert. Counterfeiting with these story time tickets has become such a problem that the library actually had to switch their system to color-coded tickets, making it almost impossible to make copies, as many people were making copies of their tickets for friends. The NYPL has started giving out story time tickets thirty minutes in advance to avoid mothers and their toddlers making a mad dash for the door. The library holds two sessions on Wednesday, one at 11:15am and the other at noon, each half- hour session holding about twenty toddlers at a time. Before this week, story time was scheduled at different times but the library had to cut down on their hours of operation as of this week because of budget cuts. Although the leader of the show, Raffensberger, says how she can “barely carry a tune,” she is able to entertain any and every toddler with her musical versions of children’s stories.

When I read this article I was absolutely amazed at how popular toddler story time had become at the NYPL. I would never have imagined that it would be at the level of popularity where mothers would be counterfeiting tickets and cutting people in line in order to attend. This article reminds me of when I was a toddler and how much I used to love listening to stories. I had always thought that the advancement in technology had replaced libraries in a way, as children these days would not get as excited as we did back then about story time in the library. This article showed me just how much story time has changed over the years, as it used to be much simpler, and now it contains musical versions of children’s books. I am happy to hear how excited toddlers still get about story time, as it shows that young children still enjoy the simplicity of reading a book.

Reading Report #2

The preconceived notion I had of Wikipedia before reading this article was that it was a website which could not be depended upon to supply people with accurate information. I can recall many of my college professors having informed the class not to use Wikipedia as a source when writing research papers, as people everywhere are able to post information and data that may perhaps be fabricated or completely false. Although I am familiar with this online encyclopedia, I never thought of it as something that would all of a sudden stop growing since new people are always accessing the website and wanting to add specific facts to help inform the world, also giving them a special sense of accomplishment. Almost every time I enter a subject into the search engine, Wikipedia is usually the first link that appears under results, making it seem hard to believe that such a large online encyclopedia such as this one, covering such a wide variety of topics, could one day cease to exist.
Although I was previously aware of the fact that this encyclopedia was constantly edited and changed by its users, I had no idea that as many as 2,200 articles were added daily and 820,000 people contributed information to Wikipedia in just one month. I knew Wikipedia was a popular and commonly accessed site but I did not think that many people would volunteer their time to share their knowledge with the world. I was shocked to learn how drastically the encyclopedia changed in only two years, as it no longer grew in exponential amounts when it reached 2009. It is difficult to tell exactly why this has happened but it could very well be attributed to the fact that people no longer trusted what was written on this encyclopedia. With 820,000 people adding information to this online encyclopedia in just one month, it makes sense that it may have stopped growing because people ran out of information to add that was not already included in the articles.

Reading Report #1

Reading the article “Web Hoaxes, Counterfeit Sites, and Other Spurious Information on the Internet” is definitely going to make me think twice about the research I do before using information from the internet for college assignments and in other aspects of life. Before reading this article, I was completely unaware of just how many counterfeit sites actually existed on the internet. When thinking about a counterfeit site, one would think maybe it would be obvious that it was not real or included misinformation, but this article taught me that counterfeit sites are in fact just like counterfeit money, in that sometimes it is hard to tell. This article taught me just how dangerous these counterfeit sites and web hoaxes can actually be. A great example of this that I learned of in the article was that of September 11th. When a major disaster like this occurs, everyone is in a state of panic. Since this kind of disaster leaves people feeling vulnerable, all it takes to cause a state of chaos in the world is for someone to write a lie or something that is fabricated on the internet to worry people even more. In this specific instance, people all over the world were coming together and helping clean up the mess and also donating money to victims. It probably never even crossed people’s minds that the website they clicked on to donate money for this cause was a hoax.

Not only did this article change the way I looked at the internet as a fun, efficient, and informative tool that makes our everyday lives easier, but it also frightened me a little bit. In a way it is quite disappointing to see the amount of hoaxes that are made up to scam other people and take their money. This article shows that when it comes to the internet, gullibility is a dangerous trait to have because this can land you right in the middle of a scam. From now on when I am navigating the internet I will be much more careful about what I choose to believe and also what I choose to click on, as I have learned that these types of counterfeit websites and hoaxes may not be as obvious as a pop up advertisement.