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Sunday Morning News

Alliance For Children Says Kids and Computers Don't Mix Before Elementary School

Aired September 24, 2000 - 9:37 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: The Alliance for Children recommends that youngsters be kept away from computers until after elementary school, saying it interferes with their socialization. And that's not the only concern. With hate sites and pornography freely flowing through cyberspace, parents need extra -- need to take extra care.

With us from New York to highlight some of the dangers and what you can do to protect your children is Vera Gibbons of "Offspring" magazine. Hi, Vera.

VERA GIBBONS, "OFFSPRING" MAGAZINE: Hi, Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Well, let me get your reaction first to the Alliance for Children and what they are saying about interfering with socialization. Do you agree with that?

GIBBONS: Well, I think computer use in moderation is perfectly fine. I think the computer can be a perfectly good asset to help children with their homework, book reports, that type of thing. But I -- the key is moderation.

PHILLIPS: Well, it also talks too about -- I'm reading it here -- that it doesn't heighten a child's creativity at that age. They can cause eyestrain, repetitive stress injuries, and even obesity, because they're not getting up and being active.

GIBBONS: Right, that's why it's important to, you know, keep it to a moderate level and let them enjoy the outdoors like any other normal kids.

PHILLIPS: So it can be stimulating at a preschool age, you're saying.

GIBBONS: It can be stimulating. They can learn a lot of -- they can play the video games, they can, again, do research for book reports, that type of thing. So it can be a useful tool.

PHILLIPS: All right, now, let's talk about your specialty, and that is the Internet filters. If a child is on the computer and on the Internet, what can parents do to protect them from things such as pornography sites and other sites that are luring kids in in a negative way? GIBBONS: There's nothing that's 100 percent foolproof. There are about a dozen filtering software programs out there, from CyberPatrol to Net Nanny to SurfWatch to S.O.S. Kidproof. They essentially -- they all work a little bit differently, but they essentially do one of two things. They either deny access to a predetermined set of Web sites, or they deny access to individual sites that contain certain words.

They can be beneficial.

PHILLIPS: OK, so give an example.

GIBBONS: Well, if a child is calling up a page, the word scanning technique, what they'll do is, they'll scan the words on the pages your child is trying to call up and then they'll deny him or her access if the pages contain words that might indicate offensive content.

PHILLIPS: Do these filters cost money? Are they complicated to do for a parent?

GIBBONS: They're not that complicated. They range about $30 to $50. You just download them to your PC. Many of them actually offer free trial downloads, so it's worth taking a look at.

PHILLIPS: How do you find out about them? Where do you purchase them?

GIBBONS: You can get them on the Web, actually.

PHILLIPS: How -- that's -- how appropriate.

GIBBONS: Like everything else.

PHILLIPS: Now, how effective have they been? Because, I mean, when kids want to get on the Internet and they want to check things out, I mean, they can do it, they can find ways to do it.

GIBBONS: That's true. Where there's a will, there's a way. We did find that, when we looked hard enough, we were able to find those sites that we definitely wouldn't want children looking at. Part of the problem with the programs that deny access to predetermined sets of Web sites is that they are really only as good as the built-in list of sites that they block. They can't possibly stay current with all the Web sites that are going up daily, and predators changing their addresses to avoid these types of filters.

The other problem which I've encountered with the programs that use the word scanning technique is that they tend to overblock, denying access to sites that are perfectly acceptable for young children.

PHILLIPS: Vera Gibbons, "Offspring" magazine, thank you very much.

GIBBONS: Thanks, Kyra. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com

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