The great and varied city
Jan. 14th, 2026 10:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
baroque_mongooseSuppose you had a child who'd been brought up in a village. Would you just drop them in the middle of London or New York without even bothering to explain anything to them about what a city was like?
Of course you wouldn't. You'd start by taking them there and showing them round. You'd point out the things that were safe and fun, the things they could enjoy free of charge, the things that they could do that would cost money (and about how much it was likely to cost), the places they should definitely avoid, and the places where you could go safely as long as you took reasonable precautions... and, obviously, what those precautions were. Only when you were satisfied that they could look after themselves adequately would you let them wander around the city on their own. It's hardly rocket science.
The Internet is a far bigger city than either London or New York, and there are many benefits to living in it, especially for someone who's limited in what they can do in physical space such as myself. I rely on it entirely for my shopping, since there are no shops round here (though apparently we are at some point getting a Lidl, which can't arrive soon enough as far as I'm concerned), and it's also extremely convenient for connecting with people with shared interests. Indeed, I originally met two of my Three Musketeers via the Internet, and the other one via one of those two, so without the Internet I would not have met three very fine gentlemen. But, nonetheless, it can still be a very dangerous place. There are a lot of bad actors out there, not to mention a (probably) larger number who aren't deliberately malicious but are nonetheless spreading confusion because they themselves are confused. It's not safe to go online without, at the very least, sound critical thinking skills and a few basic "don't"s.
I have a good friend who's a teacher, and, honestly, I don't know how he stays sane. He's officially there to teach history, but he tells me he spends far more time than he wants to in simply picking apart the various conspiracy theories and similar nonsense that his class have picked up online. He's doing a grand job there, and I'm not blaming the kids; they've all simply been allowed onto the Internet without so much as a warning to be careful. Don't get me wrong - I'm all in favour of children being allowed onto the Internet, and as early as possible, because it's such an essential tool these days. But they need to be taught, gradually, how to stay safe, starting with full parental restrictions at a very early age, and gradually opening up access as the child learns what sort of things they might run into and how to deal with them.
Apparently my friend's class (in general; there may be the odd exception) doesn't believe germs exist, because of some idiot on the Internet. At first he thought they were just pretending in order to wind him up, but, no, that's really what they believe. Although they have a perfectly reasonable dining area, they prefer to cram themselves into the toilet cubicles (not even the main washroom area!) to eat their lunch. So you get a dozen or so teenage pupils crammed into a very small, and very smelly, area, eating lunch as if it didn't matter. It's very easy to shake your head and go "they're all crazy"; but they didn't get that way on their own. They got talked into it by some adult who should very much have known better. And that, of course, is one of the less dangerous things. There's far worse out there.
And then, of course, there's the whole issue of finding information. It is really easy to find good, solid, reliable information online, and I very much appreciate that personally, especially as a writer; if I'm setting a story in, say, Wiltshire, I can very easily go online and find entire sites full of Wiltshire surnames I can use to add authentic local colour. Unfortunately it's also very easy to find misleading or downright false information, depending on exactly what you're looking for; I know academic researchers who have got very excited about finding a reference to some paper online, only to discover, on further investigation, that neither the paper nor indeed its authors actually exist. They've been made up by an AI which was trying to be helpful (and obviously hadn't been properly trained that making up information is really not the way to go). But you don't even need AI in the mix to have to be careful about information online. Anyone can put anything out there. I used to know a lady who, despite being quite bright, had swallowed a fair amount of conspiracy theory and other very weird stuff (she believed, for instance, that every so often eagles deliberately pull out all their feathers; no, they don't!), and she was always trying to send me to websites with "truth" somewhere in their name. So I learnt that websites with "truth" in their name were not to be trusted, long before the existence of Truth Social. Ironic, but... so it goes.
Well, if parents aren't teaching online safety, there's only one thing for it. We should be doing it in schools. I say this with reluctance, because it is the parents' job and teachers are already overburdened; nonetheless, if the parents aren't doing it, it is far too important to be neglected. (And, in any case, it's also supposed to be the parents' job to teach children basic cooking skills, but there are still cooking lessons in schools. They're not called that, of course. Ours were grandiosely titled Domestic Science, and I shall talk about my grave disappointment with that in another post. But the point is that there is a precedent for schools doing what should be the job of parents.)
The Internet is a wonderful city... as long as you know how to handle it.
Of course you wouldn't. You'd start by taking them there and showing them round. You'd point out the things that were safe and fun, the things they could enjoy free of charge, the things that they could do that would cost money (and about how much it was likely to cost), the places they should definitely avoid, and the places where you could go safely as long as you took reasonable precautions... and, obviously, what those precautions were. Only when you were satisfied that they could look after themselves adequately would you let them wander around the city on their own. It's hardly rocket science.
The Internet is a far bigger city than either London or New York, and there are many benefits to living in it, especially for someone who's limited in what they can do in physical space such as myself. I rely on it entirely for my shopping, since there are no shops round here (though apparently we are at some point getting a Lidl, which can't arrive soon enough as far as I'm concerned), and it's also extremely convenient for connecting with people with shared interests. Indeed, I originally met two of my Three Musketeers via the Internet, and the other one via one of those two, so without the Internet I would not have met three very fine gentlemen. But, nonetheless, it can still be a very dangerous place. There are a lot of bad actors out there, not to mention a (probably) larger number who aren't deliberately malicious but are nonetheless spreading confusion because they themselves are confused. It's not safe to go online without, at the very least, sound critical thinking skills and a few basic "don't"s.
I have a good friend who's a teacher, and, honestly, I don't know how he stays sane. He's officially there to teach history, but he tells me he spends far more time than he wants to in simply picking apart the various conspiracy theories and similar nonsense that his class have picked up online. He's doing a grand job there, and I'm not blaming the kids; they've all simply been allowed onto the Internet without so much as a warning to be careful. Don't get me wrong - I'm all in favour of children being allowed onto the Internet, and as early as possible, because it's such an essential tool these days. But they need to be taught, gradually, how to stay safe, starting with full parental restrictions at a very early age, and gradually opening up access as the child learns what sort of things they might run into and how to deal with them.
Apparently my friend's class (in general; there may be the odd exception) doesn't believe germs exist, because of some idiot on the Internet. At first he thought they were just pretending in order to wind him up, but, no, that's really what they believe. Although they have a perfectly reasonable dining area, they prefer to cram themselves into the toilet cubicles (not even the main washroom area!) to eat their lunch. So you get a dozen or so teenage pupils crammed into a very small, and very smelly, area, eating lunch as if it didn't matter. It's very easy to shake your head and go "they're all crazy"; but they didn't get that way on their own. They got talked into it by some adult who should very much have known better. And that, of course, is one of the less dangerous things. There's far worse out there.
And then, of course, there's the whole issue of finding information. It is really easy to find good, solid, reliable information online, and I very much appreciate that personally, especially as a writer; if I'm setting a story in, say, Wiltshire, I can very easily go online and find entire sites full of Wiltshire surnames I can use to add authentic local colour. Unfortunately it's also very easy to find misleading or downright false information, depending on exactly what you're looking for; I know academic researchers who have got very excited about finding a reference to some paper online, only to discover, on further investigation, that neither the paper nor indeed its authors actually exist. They've been made up by an AI which was trying to be helpful (and obviously hadn't been properly trained that making up information is really not the way to go). But you don't even need AI in the mix to have to be careful about information online. Anyone can put anything out there. I used to know a lady who, despite being quite bright, had swallowed a fair amount of conspiracy theory and other very weird stuff (she believed, for instance, that every so often eagles deliberately pull out all their feathers; no, they don't!), and she was always trying to send me to websites with "truth" somewhere in their name. So I learnt that websites with "truth" in their name were not to be trusted, long before the existence of Truth Social. Ironic, but... so it goes.
Well, if parents aren't teaching online safety, there's only one thing for it. We should be doing it in schools. I say this with reluctance, because it is the parents' job and teachers are already overburdened; nonetheless, if the parents aren't doing it, it is far too important to be neglected. (And, in any case, it's also supposed to be the parents' job to teach children basic cooking skills, but there are still cooking lessons in schools. They're not called that, of course. Ours were grandiosely titled Domestic Science, and I shall talk about my grave disappointment with that in another post. But the point is that there is a precedent for schools doing what should be the job of parents.)
The Internet is a wonderful city... as long as you know how to handle it.
no subject
Date: 2026-01-14 04:46 pm (UTC)We then gutted those type of classes, even if they are needed more than ever.
no subject
Date: 2026-01-14 04:47 pm (UTC)