Webcams for far-flung families

At least the article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a sentence about the downside of an upbeat article about keeping in touch with Webcams. It's great that Miyako Gondo in Tokyo gets to see her 13-month-old granddaughter nearly every day because little Anika's parents have a Web camera connected to the family PC. Let's just hope the parents know to monitor Anika's use of the Webcam when she gets old enough to surf the Net herself. As the Post-Gazette puts it, "Some humans even use Web cameras to engage in voyeuristic adults-only behavior not suitable for detailed discussion in a family newspaper." Law-enforcement people have told me that sexual predators send kids Webcams as "gifts," something parents easily miss because they come in such small packages. Just another reminder that most technology also has a downside parents need to be aware of (for other concerning uses, see also "Closer look at 'camgirls' sites," 2/7/03, and "Teen 'antics'-cum-child porn"). As for the numbers, the Pew Internet & American Life Project found recently that, "on any given day, about two million internet users are checking out remote places or people by using Webcams."