It’s only in recent years that mental health professionals and others have started to take a serious look at how this drastic shift in how we spend our time, get our information, interact with others and get through our days, is actually impacting our mental (and physical) state. The Internet is changing who we are, how we function and how we think. So it’s worth paying attention.

But even beyond those blatant websites and forums that coach and teach young women to abuse their bodies to strive to be the thinnest they can be, the Internet is playing a key role in promoting the spread of anorexia and other eating disorders. Let me explain.

1. Kids and young adults spend so much time online. You can not ignore the influence that the content they view will have on them. What is that content? Often, it is a lot of celebs, models, talk about what is sexy, what is hot, what is trendy. The intense and constant exposure, has a profound effect on how a young mind comes to see himself and what she strives to be.

2. And then, of course, there is social networking. Kids upload their daily lives through photos and video. They receive comments, make comments and daily dialogues are taking place, in real-time, about looks, who is fat, who is thin, who looks good. Even if a child does not upload photos of herself, chances are that someone else will. She gets tagged and that’s it. She’s online for all to see and comment on and she has no control. This can be compared to the type of exposure that the average celebrity is exposed to! But celebrities and public personalities choose a path which attracts media attention, they usually have protective staff to help handle the attention and that is a big part of what being a celebrity is about. Children, are not prepared for this type of pressure and exposure, nor should they need to be.

Insults are tossed around easily, even among friends. And when a child or teen is the focus of cyberbullying — the insults can be so powerful and so constant, that it becomes unbearable, even for a child with self confidence.

The Internet, with all the good it has to offer, has become a breeding ground for eating disorders to develop in some individuals. Of course those people may already have genetic and environmental predispositions that can lead to the development of an eating disorder. But when someone is vulnerable and given additional opportunities to take their obsession in thinness to an extreme, they are more likely to develop a problem.

Most parents are well aware of online dangers that directly threaten their children physically — meeting strangers online, giving out personal details. And most are probably aware that they have to be involved in vetting the content that their children are viewing — but in that case, they are usually only thinking about pornography. Life in the digital age is having a profound impact on our lives and especially on our children’s lives and far too often, it is not a positive effect.

It’s not surprising that Facebook plays a role in so many divorces today. I would not be too quick to suggest that couples ban Facebook from their lives because I am not so sure those same people won’t end up lawyering up anyway, but I would suggest that it become a topic of discussion among couples. Let’s look at the reasons Facebook is causing marital trouble and how to prevent that trouble:

1. Facebook allows us to effortlessly maintain contact with anyone we were ever in a relationship with! For those of us who are a bit older, think of it like the pile of photos of an old flame you may have stored somewhere. Some may feel they should toss those photos out. Some are happy to keep them in a box stored away in the attic. For most, they may just be a nice memory of younger days. But old photos don’t exist for today’s young couples. Their memories are all stored conveniently, at hands reach, on the Facebook timeline. THey don’t even have time to turn into memories because they keep living on. As old boyfriends update their status — a new job, pictures of a new girlfriend, a birthday celebration with a family you used to feel a part of — you are constantly reminded of what you left behind – or at least that may be how it feels to your new husband.

So what do you do? You talk about it. Even if it is awkward.

Couples should agree on a set of rules about keeping in touch with old boyfriends and girlfriends. Every situation is unique. But be honest with each other and respect each others concerns. Sometimes, it’s just better to “unfriend” someone and avoid any potential jealousy.

2.  Many people feel that flirting on Facebook is harmless. But a spouse may not agree. Just like you (hopefully) would not openly flirt with a girl sitting at the table next to you while out to dinner with your wife, you may want to think twice about flirting online from the comfort of your own home. It can be insulting and even dangerous. Online relationships can become intense even if you never meet the person face to face. If you find that you are drawn to such interactions, take some time to consider why that is happening. It may be an indication of a real problem.

3. Many people report feeling actual symptoms of addiction to Facebook. Checking into Facebook constantly throughout the day, uploading photos and videos of everything, changing status multiple times through the day. It can easily interfere with real life. In general, spending too much time online is not healthy. It’s not good for your physical well-being and it can dampen a relationship. With the current smartphone revolution, it is not uncommon to see couples out on a date but spending most of their time texting to friends or playing with some new app.

So what do you do? If you are the compulsive digital type, work on reducing your screen time. Just think of it as being considerate. When you are together and talking – don’t start texting, updating your status, answering calls constantly. And certainly don’t interrupt intimate moments for Facebook! If it’s your spouse who is spending too much time on Facebook or other online activities, tell him. Explain how it makes you feel and let him know that you are interested in spending quality time together.

To know if a porn filter is going to be effective for your needs, there are a few key issues you need to know to help you choose the best porn filter.

1. Does the porn filter use a database?
Most porn filter vendors do not mention how the filter actually works. Why? Because it may not be a terrifically impressive story to tell. The majority of porn filters filter based on a URL database. That means that they have gathered or purchased a database of pornography websites that they know should be blocked due to the type of content they include. This means that there will always be a significant volume of sites that get through the filter since they are not updated in the database. Further, it can mean that many sites that are not porn sites, but contain porn-like content on pages within the site, are likely to get through the filter.

2. Does the porn filter use technology to block pornography?
A true filter, has the capability to work on-the-fly. This means that any page requested with pornography content, no matter when it was created or whether it has been previously reviewed, will be caught by the filter. How? A Few porn filters are using a type of artificial intelligence that allows the filter to work on-the-fly and scan each incoming request.

3. Does the porn filter use both a database and technology to filter content?
Since scanning each and every request can be cumbersome and time consuming, in order to reduce the likelihood of browsing delays, filter engines may have a mechanism to streamline the process. Furthermore, these sophisticated engines can be self taught and the more users the filter has, the more it learns and can add to it’s own database. A streamlined process may look something like this:

-User makes a request to view a web page.

-Filter checks its database to see if it should be blocked. If yes, it is blocked and this is a very short process (undetectable by the user)

-If the page is not in the database, the filter deploys its scanning engine to review the page for the parameters it knows to be common to pornographic content. That could include language, percentage of page taken up by images, specific colors, layout and many other parameters not noticed by the naked eye.

Today, even with this process added to the browsing time, it should be negligible and completely undetectable by the user.

“I just bought Modern Warfare 2, the game. It is probably the best military simulator out there and it’s one of the hottest games this year. … I see MW2 more as a part of my training-simulation than anything else. I’ve still learned to love it though and especially the multiplayer part is amazing. You can more or less completely simulate actual operations.”

While I would not try to argue that video games drove Breivik to do what he did but this does point to a few important issues worth examining. The Call of Duty was an important training tool for what was a frightening successful attack. This is a man without police or military training after all. So I would suggest considering the idea of allowing children to play such a video game. In general, Breivik mentions being a video game enthusiast and some sites report that he was addicted to World of Warcraft. Again, I am not suggesting those games are responsible for his actions. But I would suggest that the gaming may have contributed to his social alienation that led him to commit such a crime.

Seth’s Story: Overcoming an Addiction to Pornography from Fight the New Drug on Vimeo.

I can’t get my head around the Supreme Court Decision and the way they defended the decision. Antonin Scalia likened the violence in the video games to the violence in fables that previous generations of children had read to them. And all I can say is is WHAT???

Let’s talk specifics here.  One game, examined by the court, involves having the players accumulate points for raping a mother and her daughters. Apparently, according to the distinguished judges, parents have a right to expose their children to these “ideas”.  Yes you read that right — they consider that the themes of rape and murder in these video games to be ideas to which a parent may want to expose his child.

Now this raises two alarms for me. First of all, the law simply prevented stores from selling these games to minors. So in essence, a parent could still buy the game for their children if they were set on exposing them to the ideas contained in the games. So what was the real motivation of appealing the law? Second, if our Supreme Court categorizes rape as an idea to which a parent can expose their child, then where does the line get drawn? It seems to me that it opens up the possibility for protecting the right of adults to expose children to pornography as well. I mean, is there a difference between rape and porn in a video game? Is it really only a parent’s decision to decide what is appropriate or not for their child? Or does society need to play some role in setting reasonable norms?

When the judges talk about parents, we all automatically imagine  good, caring, responsible people who want to protect their right to raise their children as they see fit. Unfortunately, that’s not realistic. Depraved people have children. Children have children. People who are working too hard to even know what their children are doing during the day, have children.

The American legal system is sending a  frightening message. That anything that some sick , depraved mind may come up with can be offered to the public. That we all have the right to sell that material and to buy that material. And that we simply have to cross our fingers that our own children don’t have to go to school with the kids who play those games, watch those movies, visit those website and are constantly exposed to those “ideas”. And as they become adults, we just have to hope that our adult children don’t fall victim to those who were unfortunate enough to not have anyone looking out for their emotional and sexual health in the digital age.

Call me naive, but why the game manufacturers would take the trouble to contest the law, is beyond my comprehension. Most decent people draw the line somewhere when it comes to profits. Do the game manufacturers really believe, that it’s acceptable for children to be exposed to extreme violence? And not only exposed, like they could be when watching the news — but as an interactive experience intended to be repeated over and over.

As games become increasingly sophisticated, we are not far away from more advanced technology being used to create even more realistic experiences. Just imagine what we are in for.