“Shockingly, the Internet does not rape your children”

It’s about time: finally, the realities of sexual predators online, children and teens and sexual abuse are all coming to light — and as I quoted t3knomanser above, the Internet’s role in making kids sexual victims is way overhyped and overblown. Now, there’s data to back it up: In an article titled “Online ‘Predators’ and Their Victims” in American Psychologist (.pdf — read it), the journal of the American Psychological Association, Janis Wolak and co-researchers examined several fears about child sexual predators online — and they concluded that many are myths. The first article about this was Fears of Internet predators unfounded, study finds, but Bruce Schneier’s post on his security and technology blog pulls out the salient bits, such as:

# Internet predators are driving up child sex crime rates.
Finding: Sex assaults on teens fell 52 percent from 1993 to 2005, according to the Justice Department’s National Crime Victimization Survey, the best measure of U.S. crime trends. “The Internet may not be as risky as a lot of other things that parents do without concern, such as driving kids to the mall and leaving them there for two hours,” Wolak said.

# Internet predators are pedophiles.
Finding: Internet predators don’t hit on the prepubescent children whom pedophiles target. They target adolescents, who have more access to computers, more privacy and more interest in sex and romance, Wolak’s team determined from interviews with investigators.

# Internet predators represent a new dimension of child sexual abuse.
Finding: The means of communication is new, according to Wolak, but most Internet-linked offenses are essentially statutory rape: nonforcible sex crimes against minors too young to consent to sexual relationships with adults.

Read his whole post with more of the myths and findings, and the comments are a long but worthwhile read. At the same time, David Pogue at the NYT asks, How Dangerous Is the Internet for Children? He doesn’t mention the study, but talks about his experience being asked to write about the dangers of the Internet for kids for a parenting magazine, and being rejected for not making it into a scare piece — because that’s not what he, as a journalist, was finding. Here’s a snip, with a link to the PBS Frontline documentary Growing Up Online on this very topic, with the same conclusions:

But if you live in terror of what the Internet will do to your children, I encourage you to watch this excellent hour long PBS “Frontline” documentary. (I learned about it in a recent column by Times media critic Virginia Heffernan). It’s free, and it’s online in its entirety. The show surveys the current kids-online situation—thoroughly, open-mindedly and frankly.

Turns out I had it relatively easy writing about the dangers to children under age 12; this documentary focuses on teenagers, 90 percent of whom are online every single day. They are absolutely immersed in chat, Facebook, MySpace and the rest of the Web; it’s part of their ordinary social fabric to an extent that previous generations can’t even imagine. The show carefully examines each danger of the Net. And as presented by the show, the sexual-predator thing is way, way overblown, just as I had suspected. Several interesting interview transcripts accompany the show online; the one with producer Rachel Dretzin goes like this:

“One of the biggest surprises in making this film was the discovery that the threat of online predators is misunderstood and overblown. The data shows that giving out personal information over the Internet makes absolutely no difference when it comes to a child’s vulnerability to predation.” (That one blew my mind, because every single Internet-safety Web site and pamphlet hammers repeatedly on this point: never, ever give out your personal information online.)

“Also, the vast majority of kids who do end up having contact with a stranger they meet over the Internet are seeking out that contact,” Ms. Dretzin goes on. “Most importantly, all the kids we met, without exception, told us the same thing: They would never dream of meeting someone in person they’d met online.” (… read more)

Include the real-life statistics and data on child sexual abuse and you get a fuller picture, which is why I wanted to put this post together. Millions of individuals — particularly children — 65% have been (or are) abused by family members or people they trust or know in real life (and that 30% are abused by their parents, not MySpace).