You bring up a good point, nona - thank you! I don't think the publishing industry really has a handle on Internet safety, not to mention grownups in general (somebody should publish a Net-safety book written by a teen!). Having followed for about 10 years, my journalist's view of the public discussion on online safety is that it has been dominated to date by law enforcement and attorneys (many of the experts online-kids advocacy are lawyers by training, many speakers in school assemblies on the subject have been police officers, and most of the social-networking sites' chief security officers are former lawyers or prosecutors, and the Justice Dept. has been the source of much of the funding of nonprofit work in this area). This is probably as it should be, since the first priority from the start has had to be protection of children from criminal activity.

Now we're needing to broaden the discussion to include non-criminal but also nonethical (and sometimes illegal) behavior, such as 1) cyberbullying - the peer-to-peer stuff that's been going on among kids since the beginning of time, but that's online now too, and 2) the negative reinforcement young people get online for behaviors such as eating disorders, substance abuse, etc.

So the discussion is needing to broaden, and maybe mainstream publishing will begin to address the online part of parenting, the online aspects of bullying, the child-development and psychological expertise needed to support at-risk teens (online being just an extension of all these things that have been with us for eons).

In fact, I often stick my neck out to say that the term "online safety" should become, maybe is becoming, obsolete, since the Internet just mirrors "real life," and it is impelling us to deal with issues (and see them in a new light) with which we need to do a better job of helping youth. But that was probably more information than you wanted! Thanks for posting,
Anne
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Anne Collier
ConnectSafely co-director