There is probably no country that is experiencing the negative side of the Internet quite as we are. Most of all, the Internet has become an open market for the dissemination and amplification of groundless rumors. In this nation, a scurrilous rumor started by a jobless person with aspirations of grandeur that a female college student was beaten to death by riot police motivates a large group of people to take out an ad on the front page of a daily newspaper calling for witnesses. This phenomenon cannot be explained just by saying that Korea has one of the highest per-capita Internet use rates and the highest rate of high-speed Internet connections in the world.

Many people hide behind the anonymity offered by the Internet to spread false rumors without feeling a shred of guilt. If a victim surfaces, everyone rushes to take a bite. Some people end up having to quit their jobs and move house because of the harsh words that people post on the Internet. Last year, a singer took her own life, unable to tolerate comments people posted on the Internet, that alleged she had plastic surgery to enhance her looks.

Statistics show that 98.1 percent of elementary schools use the Internet. In a country like this, it is only proper to start teaching Internet etiquette at an early age. We must above all teach our children how to distinguish between fact and fiction in the sea of information they encounter on the web. The objects of the comments people post on the Internet are not cyber characters: they are real human beings, just like those who post harmful comments, who live in the real world and have real feelings. That is what we need to teach our children.

The bile that pours out on the Internet is truly frightening. Unless we teach our children how to be considerate of others, how to control their emotions and how to express themselves properly, the cyber world may end up destroying the real world.

The other key issue is online game addiction. Unless it afflicts their child, parents usually do not know what a serious problem it can be. Parents and teachers must therefore also join hands to let young students know that online game addiction will devastate their world and destroy their personality and relationship with their family, just like drugs.