Don't we have other things to worry about?

There are a couple of websites now available where you can report unwanted internet sexual advances, and they're useful if you run into a case. I would list them here but I've lost them. They should be easily enough Googled. One is something like "Cyberlink.com." There are currently public service ads being shown on TV that will provide an email address. The ads claim that "one out of every five children" is the subject of an internet sexual solicition. That figure is based on the following report.

I wanted to describe, very briefly, the only important and remotely respectable study that's been done on the subject of unwanted sexual approaches, a study of more than 1,000 youngsters between the ages of, I think, 10 and 17, done by two psychologists at the University of New Hampshire. It can't possibly be too reliable because the phone survey asked these teens, both boys and girls, to remember and describe any solicitations they may have gotten over the past year.

Given that, a couple of interesting findings emerged. About 19% of the respondents claimed to have received unwanted sexual solicitations -- defined as live chats or emails. A surprising number of them, about 25% if I recall, came from women, probably professional ads -- the study doesn't make it clear. Of those receiving such solicitations, about one quarter of the teens say it made them uneasy. These teens were disproportionately in the 10 to 14 year age group. The older teens didn't find them bothersome. And let's keep in mind that, within the definitions used in this study, an 18-year-old boy who asks a 17-year-old girl a naughty question is making an "unsolicited assault."

Anyway, the most important finding of this major study is that in only 5% of the sample was there any attempt at all to establish physical contact by means of a date or a meeting somewhere. And in NO CASES AT ALL did any meetings result.

In other words, the internet does not seem to be filled with salivating monsters who prey on naive young girls. The name "internet predators" precedes the existence of the predators themselves. Or in yet other terms, "internet predator" is a class that has no members, a "null set."

Now, this is going to outrage many people who believe there are thousands of them out there, Princes of Darkness, desperate to seduce our children and sell them into the white slave trade or whatever.

But, you know what? I'm GLAD that they don't exist. It means our kids aren't in as much danger as we thought, and that makes me happy. Shouldn't it make every parent happy?

I have an awful lot of things to worry about and tend to. Thank goodness this is one source of anxiety that can be put on the back burner.