RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH THE USE OF THE INTERNET AND ITS IMPACT UPON STUDENTS' AWARENESS OF PERVERSE ISSUES: A PROPOSAL FOR A PREVENTIVE PROGRAM

The current study attempts to develop a preventive program to fend off the risks of using the Internet by trying to test the effectiveness of raising students’ awareness on various new technology-related issues. In order to achieve this goal, descriptive, analytical, and experimental approaches have been utilized. The program has been applied to a sample of middle and high school students in the cities of Jeddah, Al-Qassim and Riyadh before and after the experiment to gain more insight into the effectiveness of the designed program. A special measure of level of students' awareness has been established. As shown in the findings, the program has proven to be highly effective in raising the awareness of middle and high school students about the problems and risks of misusing the internet. In particular, results show a statistically significant difference in the mean of students' awareness between the experimental and control groups in favor of the experimental groups.
The students' responsiveness to the awareness scale has shown no statistically significant differences between the two groups with regard to gender, but with the students of Jeddah and Riyadh showing a higher level of risk than those of Al-Qassim. Based on these findings, the researchers recommend the use of information technology to create communication networks across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to exchange knowledge and experience in a risk-free internet environment, passing on such knowledge and experience to students through school curricula, a special program, or the incorporation of it into a computer course.