Rather than over-focusing on how to protect young people on the internet, we need to educate them in its effective use, writes Stephen Brennan.
Protecting young people against undue risk is a natural instinct for most parents and people in positions of responsibility. Knowing exactly where a young person is, who they are with, and what there are doing, is reassuring.
In pre-technology days it was much easier to monitor what our young were up to: intercepting a letter in the post, a sneak read of a diary or an overheard telephone conversation all provided clues about their activities.
When unhappy, parents would take control.
Slapping a lock on the family telephone, or imposing an after-school curfew helped to curb activities and communications with certain "friends".
But that was the real world, where both parents and young people co-existed. Each understood the locations, characters and boundaries. In the new and emerging virtual world, monitoring and controlling the activities of young people can seem a much more daunting task.
A recent suggestion by an internet safety expert that every child should be issued with a State e-mail address may assure parents who feel at sea.
It is envisaged that the special-issue address could be used on social network sites such as Bebo and MySpace and provide some tracking of inappropriate communications.
However, such a control mechanism only has limited capacity. The worldwide web is not disposed to controls by individual states.
It transcends physical and political boundaries. Interactions through web-technology are constantly breaking barriers that are unfamiliar to many.
Our inability to control this, leave some feeling insecure and disempowered, particularly when we know our children are technologically more adept than us.
Public and media discourse has largely fuelled these insecurities. Most commentary and coverage of internet social networks tends to focus on the risks and dangers associated with web-interaction by young people: bullying, intimidation and inappropriate contact with adults.
The benefit of engagement with web technologies by young people is seldom highlighted.
Whatever generation we come from, everyone has a deep-seated need to interact with other humans. Especially for younger people, these interactions form part of the growing-up process.
Like every generation before, our young people face challenges and decisions about their future, and peer interaction offers them support.
Technology, so often summarised by the term "the internet", is now an integral part of young people's lives. The fundamental characteristic of the majority of this technology is very simple - it connects people.
Cyber communities now form a new layer in our society. Largely occupied by young people, they facilitate conversations, information exchanges and learning.
Sometimes this community can be intercepted by people who have little regard for child protection and safety. However, restricting access for young people will not provide any easy answers.
Access to web technology empowers users to author their own contribution to the collective. The technology is for everyone.
Those with access can publish, just like major broadcast companies can. We, as a society, can hear and learn from a far wider spectrum of opinion. Since 2001, the Digital Hub Development Agency has been engaged in rolling out a digital media learning initiative in schools in the Liberties and Coombe areas of Dublin's southwest inner city. Internet, mobile media, gaming and other digital media technologies has played a central role in educating up to 8,000 young people and exposing them to opportunities and experiences that otherwise would have passed them by.
In March, an independent evaluation of this education programme will be published.
But, we already know that it has had a positive impact on class attendance and early-school leaving. It has also resulted in better outcomes for schools which have traditionally shown poor education attainment levels.
For us, the lesson that is emerging is that society must learn to embrace and understand internet-based technologies, because it offers new opportunities to young people who previously may not have engaged with traditional learning methods. Rather than over-focusing on how to protect young people on the internet, we need to educate them in its effective use.
Internet providers have responsibilities, and for the most part of it, they constantly review processes, technology and procedures to avoid putting users at risk.
But these efforts are - and will probably never be - watertight.
Parents, teachers and those in positions of responsibility can actively play a role in promoting positive use of internet technology. Responsibility also rests with the media and commentators.
While exposés on bullying and internet abuses are headline grabbing, the positive impact which web-technology can have on the lives of young people far outweighs the negative.
As a group of parents in the US commence a law suit against MySpace over exposing their children to abusers, its likely public fears over social networking sites will be further heightened and more restrictions will be sought.
But it must be remembered, the internet is global. Sticking-plaster measures like State-issued e-mail addresses for young people might make parents sleep better for a few nights, but young people who know technology also know that boundaries can be broken.
Parental involvement, reasoned debate and making internet technology a positive and exciting part of a young person's life is how we can achieve a safe virtual environment.
Stephen Brennan is director of marketing and strategy with the Digitial Hub Development Agency.