The latest surveys show that 75 per cent of the British public now use the Internet for personal use. E-mail, on-line banking, on-line shopping and finding information about goods and services on the Internet have become part of most people's everyday experience. And there are now over one million computers in schools. This book looks at the benefits and also the threats that the Internet poses.
The information comes from a wide variety of sources and includes government reports and statistics, newspaper reports, features, magazine articles and surveys, literature from lobby groups and charitable organisations.
Table of Contents
Chapter One: Our Internet Society
An introduction to the Internet, UK children go online, E-shopping continues to surge, Internet shopping, They flash their cash with a click, The guide to online grocery shoppers, Transforming learning and children’s services, Old-fashioned education?, Internet to change the face of banking in five years, The digital divide, Ten years of Cyberia, Email to all staff . . ., Trust in online resources, Information wants to be liquid.
Chapter Two: Dangers of the Internet
Opportunities and risks go hand in hand, The Internet, The Internet – it’s a real world out there!, Parents must act on online safety advice, Internet safety by age, Illegal images of children go unreported, The Virtual Global Taskforce, Child abuse, child pornography and the Internet, Personal safety tips, New centre to protect children online, Internet pornography offences quadrupled in two years, Spam, Phishing, Pharming out-scams phishing, Chat and instant messaging, Dealing with computer and Internet addiction, Hollywood heads to court over movie-swapping, File sharing.
Key Facts
Additional Resources
Index
Acknowledgements
• The Internet is made up of millions of computers linked together around the world in such a way that information can be sent from any computer to any other 24 hours a day. (page 1)
• About 4.2 million people now spend £600 or more online every six months. (page 7)
• There is evidence in the UK of a digital divide with some groups largely excluded from benefiting from access to the Internet for a variety of reasons including cost, lack of confidence or skills in using computers, and relevance. (page 13)
• 73 per cent of network managers would not report illegal images of children to the police, despite internally disciplining the employee committing the offence. (page 24)
• The number of people cautioned or charged with child pornography offences in 2003 was 2,234, up from only 549 in 2001. This is also a huge increase of 6,500 per cent since 1988 – when the current legal framework for child pornography offences was established and only 35 cases were recorded. (page 29)
• File-sharing networks have become wildly popular, they allow individuals to download games, applications, music and movies and more virtually for free. They are simple to use, and allow people from all over the world to pool their ‘resources’ 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. (page 39)
Our Internet Society Study Guide
Each book in the Issues series has a study guide. These four-page guides provide a variety of discussion points and other activities to suit a wide range of ability levels and interests.
Publisher: Independence Educational Publishers
Price: £1.50
ISBN: 978 1 86168 330 4
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