We echo concerns voiced by a Michigan State Police officer recently relative to children and safety on the Internet.

“There are people out there on the Internet doing things they shouldn’t be doing,” Det. Sgt. Wesley Smith of the MSP Computer Crimes Unit in Traverse City, said in an interview published in The Escanaba Daily Press. The interview and story, reprinted in The Mining Journal, were in connection to a current online child porn case authorities are persuing in Delta County.

“I would call this a prolific problem,” the detective commented for the story, which was authored by Daily Press reporter Jenny Lancour.

He estimated his department investigates 20-30 similar cases each year in its jurisdiction of the Upper Peninsula and the northern Lower Peninsula.

Most parents, we suspect, know by now the Internet isn’t a safe place for their children to hang out. That’s not to say the Internet is all bad, or every site is brimming with predators. Of course, that’s not true either.

But here’s what has changed in the last couple of years: Not too long ago, the Internet was a laptop in a bedroom that mom and dad kept an eye on. So far, so good. Now, online is in virtually every backpack and book bag. Smart phones have seen to that.

For parents, this means a whole new set of challenges, in terms of monitoring what their children are doing online. It’s a brave new world, no doubt. But we can’t help but wonder if it’s a better world than we had.