Every week there are reports about how kids are being exposed to pornography on the Internet and how workers are wasting time online when they should be working.

One of the scary things reported was a survey taken by the University of New Hampshire's Crime Against Children Research Centre, which found that 19 percent of children who use the Internet regularly received unwanted sexual solicitations. Anyone concerned about children will say that even if only 1% of the kids online were solicited, that would be too many. But that statistic is too broad.

What the statistic does not say is that all of those unwanted solicitations occurred when kids were chatting online.

To keep your children safe online, do not let them chat. Just as you do not let your child talk to strangers when you are about town, do not let your child talk to strangers online, and a stranger online is anyone whom you, the parent has not met face to face.

And if your child's favourite web site is disney.com, you have even less to worry about. Walt Disney Co. has stopped letting anyone under the age of 12 into its unmoderated chat rooms, joining a growing number of kids' web sites restricting online interaction. The Walt Disney Internet Group (WDIG) has installed session cookies, which have been in use since 1997 at other web sites. The cookies prevent children ejected from a chat room from re-registering as adults.

Another children's portal, Zeeks.com, pulled all of its interactive elements as well last month.

Another worrisome item reported is that eMarketer estimates that the average at-work user will spend about 2.5 hours online during a day, 12 hours a week and 50 hours a month. What that statistic does not report is that most of the time workers are online at work is during their breaks. Workers will often surf at their desks while they eat their lunch, or take a break to check the sports scores instead of going to the break room and chatting, or send a quick e-mail instead of making a phone call. Workers in the US report that they have either stayed late or come into the office on the weekend to access the Internet because their office connections are faster than their home dial-up connections.

An employee may be using the Internet in the office for personal use, but they are usually doing it on their own time. Until high-speed access, such as DSL and ISDN, is widely available and affordable in Bermuda what choice do workers have if they are going to stay Internet savvy and technologically astute, so that Bermuda can compete in the global marketplace? Employers concerned about employees wasting time online need to remember why they bought into the Internet concept in the first place. The Internet makes it easier and cheaper to share information and communicate. Workers have to be comfortable online, so they can know when to use the Internet to help then "work smarter'', and to be comfortable online, you have to spend time online.

Another big concern about the Internet is that artists will lose money because people will steal their stuff off the Internet. Stephen King appears to be making money by distributing his stories over the Internet. He has said that if 75% of the people who download his story do not pay for it, he will not write the next chapter. His method seems to be working and you can download all 3 chapters of "The Plant'' from his web site, but if you want to read the fourth chapter, you'd better pay for it. Since Mr. King is publishing the story himself he is only charging $1 per chapter. And in the music industry the number of full-length CDs manufacturers shipped to the US market is at an all-time high. Sales have grown 6 percent from this time last year, totalling an impressive 420 million units in the first six months of 2000. This is despite fears that people who download music for free from sites like napster.com would reduce sales.

"Historically, technology often rewards those who fear it and fight it most vigorously'', says attorney Lia Macko. "Television was supposed to drive the movies out of business. The radio, audio-cassette recorder, and VCR/Betamax were also expected to ruin the entertainment industry. In the early '80s, Motion Picture Association President Jack Valenti (who now leads the fight against Napster), claimed the VCR was to film "as the Boston Strangler is to the woman alone''. Valenti was wrong, and nearly three-quarters of all Napster users said their use of the service has "widened their musical horizons, encouraging them to purchase music from different artists or from different categories of music'', according to a survey conducted in late July by InsightExpress, an online research service.

The Internet has really only been a daily part of our lives for five or six years now, and it is not the most intuitive thing to figure out, so people are naturally leery of it. Because the Internet is such a new part of our lives, we are still working out its kinks. But as most conspiracy theories tend to be overblown or simply wrong, so too are many of the myths surrounding the dangers of the Internet.

Use it wisely and use common sense, but don't fear it. It's no more threatening to you or your children or your business than your telephone or a magazine stand.