Terrorism in our Homes - Internet usage

southernbubby

Mon, Jun 12 2006, 10:07 am

This was the title of a talk last night in the Weston Hotel grand ballroom here in Detroit by Rabbi Michal Twerski from Milwalkee WI, on use of the internet. The event was packed with frum people wanting to hear Rabbi Twerski and also a menahel from Baltimore, Rabbi Norman Lowenthal who is an expert on high tech.
Rabbi Twerski said that with all of the focus on the impact of the internet on children, we forgot to include the negative impact on adults. His statistics are that there are 380 million pages of shmutz available online and it is a more lucrative business than organized sports. 20% of men visit such sites during the workday and 90% of children ages 7 to 16 have seen hard core shmutz. He said that many parents are not interacting with their children anymore because they are spending hours a day logged on.
The effect on the neshama of shmutz is[b] permanent[./b]No amount of tshuva can erase the harm and these visions will come to a person when he is davening on Yom Kippur and obscure his holy thoughts.
Rabbi Lowenthal said that children who have viewed the news clips of beheadings have needed psychiatric help for post traumatic stress syndrome and that children who have been bullied online have committed suicide. Online gambling which is highly addictive can take the form of shopping on ebay auctions. Sites that appear kosher such as www.chofetzchaim.com, have been taken over by shmutz when the bill for the server was not paid. People logging on to study Torah got an eyefull.
He talked about the wireless tech available today which enables children to be in the path of danger from predators without the parents ever being aware. Any thoughts on what was said?

chen

Mon, Jun 12 2006, 10:19 am

What's there to say? The speaker was absolutely right. Calling it terrorism is not overstating the matter. No wonder some communities insist on no Internet at all.

Unfortunately, that ends up handicapping people because certain services are becoming totally computerized or so much so that they may as well be. For example, the company that provides cell phones for yeshiva bocherim in Israel sends itemized bills only by e-mail. No e-mail , no itemized bill. Confused