Causes: Risks and Opportunities:

During the recent decades this area of study has been deeply analyzed, and the study has grown
to educate people about technology based aspects. Teachers encourage their students to go online
and search for relevant academic material to supplement their class performances (Hooper and
Rieber, 1995; der Wu and Chen, 2008). Childrens use of internet has been studied and classified
in depth. Much of these studies have limited to highlight childrens use of internet without
considering potential hazards of going online risk fully. Its been said that the teachers only seek
opportunities when they urge students to go online. The point which they forget to consider is
indeed there are opportunities but, risks are also associated and followed up by opportunities.
One minor mistake in a Google search bar can change the whole course of the relevancy of the
content and students may get distracted from their actual purpose of going online.

Previous studies couldnt determine the use of online applications which include applications
used for messaging, calls/video call etc. Young children in our society use smartphones in
abundance, and instantly step into the risks of getting bullied or abused or hacked by the deviant
forces on internet.

Valkenburgs Empowered and Vulnerable Child Model:

Valkenburg has classified and described the relationship between children and media through
different supporters of explicit media content. One is the empowered child, where the
supporters of this phenomena believe that the children are sophisticated and naturally competent.
The believers of this phenomena assume that the empowered child has competent intelligence
and can differentiate between risks and opportunities all by itself and hence, should not be caged
by certain restrictions.

On the contrary, there is another phenomenon called the vulnerable child. The believers of this
phenomena assume that the vulnerable child carry passive approach and are innocent by nature.
So, they should be protected from all the evil that comes from the media and internet
(Valkenburg, 2004: 7).

The above explained model seems quite correct in todays world, irrespective to whichever social
classes children belong to. There are children who posses all kind of modern technology and are
aware of every risk and opportunity associated with the online environment. They can
differentiate between what is harmful and what is harmless and restrain themselves from all the
evil that may come from internet.

Then, there are children who need to be monitored and protected from all the online evil which
may strike their brain and cause harmful effects. Despite of being acknowledged about all the
associated risks and opportunities, they adopt the internet evil so quickly and immerse
themselves in devilish online world.
Effects of Online Environment in Childrens Lives:
This study focuses on online environment in childrens everyday lives (between the ages of 11-
13 years), in accordance to parents and teachers point of view. There are some positive effects
and some negative effects of internet in childrens everyday lives. If we talk about the positive
effects, no one can question the benefits that are derived from the internet. Children are often
seen using the internet to search for new music, online gaming and other entertainment purposes.
Students are often assisted academically through internet as they are eager perform well in their
schools with minimum effort and maximum productivity. Also, the most common and daily use
of internet include various communication opportunities, social networking, instant messaging
and emailing. This might reduce physical interaction between peers but seems very convenient
and welcomes change.

Parents think that children playing online games is somehow a wastage of time and energy. But
that is not always the case, children engaging towards online gaming are often much more
intelligent and confident about themselves, and they develop their skills (Jenkins, 2006; Ito et al,
2008).

On the other side of the picture, positive effects have many negative effects within them. The
negative impact of internet on young minds is alarming and needs to be addressed seriously.
The misuse of internet by children has been a huge problem in todays world, right from the rise
of internet days. There are several ways in which children utilize internet and portray their
messages via chats or web pages and get involved in some deviant activities which requires
serious law enforcements (Dunkin, 1997).
There are some very deep studies on the risks and negative experiences that children might face
by using the internet such as cyberbullying, online grooming, unwanted adult content or
excessive internet addiction (Aboujaoude et al., 2015; Kowalski
et al., 2014; Mitchell et al., 2003; Smahel and Blinka, 2012; Whittle et al., 2012).

In this era of modern technology, children are not much aware about the negative outcomes of
excessive internet use. Children using social media, are not much concerned about getting their
accounts hacked and their personal info might be misused, or they can be blackmailed by
hackers, pointing harm at their families. Parental guidance and teachers assistance is mandatory
in building young minds. In spite of tremendous amount of innovation in the technological area,
the fear of risky online environment still persists.
Creating a safer online environment for children is not an easy task for adults, as they have
different approaches to internet safety, and most importantly, risk and opportunities go hand in
hand, when there are opportunities, there are risks too (Livingstone et al., 2011).