THE trial of two 13-year-old boys convicted of murdering Ana Kriegel has put a strong spotlight on the impact of internet access on young people.
Shocked parents will have read with horror about Boy A and B’s fondness for violent video games, Boy A’s persistent consumption of pornography and boy B’s obsession with weapons.
The revelations have again reignited the debate around internet usage and its ability to warp the behaviour and attitudes of youngsters.
And they will no doubt encourage parents to pay closer attention to the type of material their children are consuming online.
But it begs the question: what constitutes dangerous material and at does access to it automatically lead to dangerous behaviour in children?
Here, top psychologists Dr Cynthia McVey and Dr Vincent Egan tell AOIFE FINNERAN how parents can approach this contentious issue.
Q: Why is parental monitoring so important when it comes to internet use?
Dr Cynthia McVey, former head of psychology at Glasgow Caledonian University:
“These days, children are able to access material that wouldn’t previously have been available to people of their age.
Pornographic material was traditionally kept on top shelves in shops and you had to be a certain age to buy them.
Now, if they have unsupervised access to the internet and they press a couple of buttons, children can inadvertently find themselves in a site with inappropriate violent sexual content.
It’s beyond their understanding and at best it’s confusing.
At worst could be something that becomes of interest to them, and as a result they search for more things and become more deeply involved, and they don’t have the emotional or intellectual maturity to understand or cope with or what they’re seeing or to make moral judgement.
You don’t want young children to grow up beyond their years and to have to think about something that’s beyond their age of understanding.”
Q: How should parents react if they discover their child has accessed age-inappropriate material?
Dr Vincent Egan, associate professor of forensic psychology practice at the University of Nottingham: “Remember that the internet is a force for everything, for bad and for good.
“Look at how it helps children to create and to communicate, to do their homework, and all of these things are very important.
“Some children will abuse technology but parents have an opportunity to show them how to stick to the good stuff and avoid the trash.
They should check the search histories on the family server but be conscious of the context.
If a child has searched for violent material on the internet it doesn’t automatically mean that they have violent tendencies. It could be that the child is researching as they have an interest in joining Amnesty.”
Q: Which comes first? Is access to damaging material responsible for warping children’s behaviour, or are children with violent tendencies more likely to seek out this material?
Dr McVey: “It’s difficult to know, it’s a chicken and egg situation and we don’t know the answer unless there’s a raft of information available about the general behaviour of children before they access these materials.
“You may get children who enjoy hurting others, or enjoy watching violence, and if they realise that type of material is available they’ll look for it.
“You’ll also get children who never think of it, and they come across it accidentally.
“Once they’re exposed to it, they don’t have to do or perform the behaviour but they’ve seen it, and they know how to do it.
“If a child has an inclination to be a bit aggressive, and every child is different, it doesn’t mean they’re going to turn out to be an offender.
“However, if a child seems to be quite aggressive and they witness more aggressive material, it won’t be helpful.
“Similarly a placid child witnessing that type of material, it would not be helpful.”
Q: Surely there’s a level of curiosity about violence or pornography that could be considered “normal” for a developing young adult?
Dr Egan: “Every generation has the next layer of outrageousness.
“Within a cohort of 13 year olds there’ll always be one or two pushing the boundaries, more who pretend to but aren’t and a lot who are not interested.
Lots of teen boys might be interested to sex and porn but wouldn’t be interested in sex with children.
If they know it’s forbidden, a wrongful thing, they might go down that route as a way of testing their own audacity.
It’s also important to point out that children grow up at different rates depending on the child and the context.
In the past where women were married at 12 or there were big sisters looking after little ones and parents dying in their 30s, people were exposed to terrible things then.
“You have to look at the individual, the particular child and how they process stuff.
“A significant thing is a child that’s seeking out sadistic content, they’re doing this to test themselves, to try and make themselves look bigger and show how “courageous” they can be.
“When you’re seeking out real life sadism and real life abuse, there’s clearly something going on and you don’t want to let it continue.”
Q: At the age of 13, are children old enough to understand the consequences of what they’re looking at online?
Dr McVey: “Some kids love horror movies, or vampires, and they like the “ooh” factor that comes with it.
So, when they come across something online that looks shocking, they might not understand it as real violence, they may perceive it as not real.
They’re unlikely to understand the harm that pornography does to the people involved.
You would imagine that they’d know that because it’s not on celluloid on a big screen, it’s real, but often there’s a disconnect so they don’t realise that there is an impact for real people.”
Q: How should I discuss these issues with my child?
Dr Egan: “If you find that your child has accessed inappropriate material online, I think rather than saying it’s wrong, I‘d say why and I would explore it.
“If they’re going to try and act like an adult, they have to be able to talk like an adult.
“We need to make it very clear, and say: “We don’t look at children being abused sexually, they’re below the age of consent and what you’re viewing here is a crime.”
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“The thing about 13 year olds is that sometimes they’re more like 23 and sometimes they’re like a three year old.
“This is a time when the body is becoming more developed but there are still moments where they need parenting and guidance.
“It’s important that they know that if they’re choosing a pathway to wickedness it’ll come back to haunt them.”