There are dangers everywhere in the world and problems are always waiting to happen. Sometimes, children are abducted in parks. This, however, does not mean that parents stop taking their children to parks. An argumentative analogy can be made about the internet, although it can lead to potential dangers for children, such potential dangers are no reason for parents to take away this valuable resource, particularly since the dangers are overstated. According to Irish News, only 15 children in Ireland have been sexually assaulted in the past two years by people whom they have initially met in internet chat rooms. There are approximately five million children in Ireland who have private access to the internet. This means that only .0003% or 3 out of every million children using the internet is sexually assaulted as a result of internet access. In , 16 children have been abducted or sexually assaulted as a result of meeting people on the internet. Compared to the outside world where children are sexually assaulted more often, these numbers are extremely small. In 2002 alone in London, there were 577 child abductions, 2,631 cases of criminal cruelty and 2,816 sexual assaults on children. This makes the 16 children who have ever been harmed as a result of internet access seem somewhat insignificant (Hewson). Criminologist David Finkelhor of the University of New Hampshire says, "There are new perils for kids, but no evidence that kids are on the whole more endangered today as a result of the Internet" (Elmer-Dewitt). Thus while the internet poses potential threats for danger, and there is the occasional case that some sort of crime against a child does occur as a result of internet1- these instances are so few that it is not something that should become a main focus of U.S. efforts to increase child safety.
According to an article by the Associated Press on catching internet child stalkers, one in 33 children has had an internet friend want to call them or meet them in the past year.