Cyberspace harms for children

Abstract

The Internet was initially designed for military and academic purposes. However, with its growth and development, it gradually became available to more people and provided different levels of access to information, culture, communication, education, entertainment, etc. The purpose of this study was to identify the challenges faced by children online, future harms, and their safety in cyberspace. The type of research is practical in terms of purpose, and the research method is qualitative and through interviews. In this study, the challenges of children online, future harm, and their safety in cyberspace were first identified through the analysis of data obtained from interviews with experts from sociology, psychology, and Law, and then these challenges were prioritized. The classification of these challenges was discussed. According to the results, these challenges have eight dimensions: easy access to unethical resources, induction of intellectual doubts, conflict of values, addiction to cyberspace, social isolation, time-waste, reduction of family communication, and generation gap. It was also found that the dimensions of addiction to cyberspace, easy access to unethical resources, and time-waste have the highest importance among the challenges, and the dimensions of reduction of family communication, social isolation, and generation gap are the next priority in terms of importance. Finally, the dimensions of induction of intellectual doubts and conflict of values are less important among the challenges.