Friday, December 31, 2010

Why We Need Parental Controls For Our Parents

My mother should never be allowed on the internet ever. And frankly no mom that I know should be. A few dads need to be monitored as well. I don't know if any of them are capable of traversing the internet without infecting their computers and ending up at stupid websites that are not helpful.

True once upon a time AOL was reliable internet and browser provider. Now it is a joke. It is the home of the pop up cookie. They list nothing but silly stories. It has never been the good at performing searches and frankly needs to be put down. We as a younger generation need to rise up and demand the permanent disbandment of AOL and force all users to download Google Chrome and use gmail.

My mom has some how managed to flip her name on Facebook. It now reads her Last First name. I can't figure out how she managed to do that. I tried to do it myself just to see and I can't seem to manage it. She doesn't even know how she did it. I could try to explain it to her but I am pretty sure that would take days over the internet and hours over the phone. But seeing as she hardly ever changes her password I am pretty sure I can make a few guesses and get in and fix it for her. And while I am at it I want to take away her ability to send people applications on Facebook because that is getting out of hand.

Further more she some how finds all these E-cards that I am pretty sure are laden with viruses. They are creepy and ask for me to join their services. When I went home to see her I could barely see any internet page because every halfassed company had a search bar insert, she had seven at least.

My boyfriend's mom sits on AOL for hours and then prints of the articles like they are to be trusted and hands them to us. Frankly I don't know how she gets to her email everyday seeing as the one time I clicked it by accident about eight windows popped up. And then she says that Google is confusing.

These reasons are why I think we need to create an internet aptitude and computer test for adults. The test would include, turning on a computer, opening and internet browser, searching for a few websites and images without ending up on a scam or miss-clicking to something crazy, sending and email that does not include ALL CAPS as a way of showing something is important, sending an attachment in an email that is not a virus or impossible to open, navigating away from a program, not downloading anything and everything, running a simple computer scan.

Anyone unable to pass this test would have parental controls placed on their computer so they cannot harm the machine and anyone else who might need use of it.

1 comment:

  1. http://notalwaysright.com/in-cyberspace-no-one-can-hear-you-scream/7828

    this is all I have to say on the subject.

    I wish I could say this was an exaggeration.

    ReplyDelete