Opening up an Internet browser is like opening the door and going outside

"Unsupervised surfing is like letting them roam the streets, says No 10 adviser"

Professor Tanya Byron, who is investigating the harmful effects of video games and websites, has used an analogy to warn parents of the potential dangers.

"A lot of parents don't realise that it's the same as opening the door and going out into the street, opening that [internet] browser."

In order for this analogy to work, I think we have to agree that the risks of using websites are similar in scale to the risks of children roaming the streets.  She is effectively telling parents that it is irrational to allow children to surf the Internet when they don't allow them to roam the streets.

One important difference would be that there are several risks associated with allowing children to roam the streets that are not associated with surfing the Internet.  Children can't, for example, get run over indoors.

Many people would be concerned with "stranger danger" i.e. the risk of children being abducted.  We are told that predatory paedophiles operate on certain websites visited by children and then arrange to meet those children.  However, in order to meet these paedophiles, the children would have to leave the home.  So, it would seem that allowing children to "roam the streets" is a more dangerous activity, although it might become more dangerous if the children have previously surfed the Internet.

The Telegraph article is at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/digital-media/6554101/Internet-as-dangerous-as-letting-children-go-out-into-the-street-says-Prof-Tanya-Byron.html