Nibhanapudi Suguna
The advent of computers has changed our lives completely. Communicating with people has become easier through chatting, mailing and tweeting and distances does not matter.
Earlier we had to go to telephone booth to make an ISD call or book a call on landline which used to take very long to connect. Airmail used to take one week to reach to its destination. Sending our near and dear ones to distant lands used to be filled with anxiety, fear and emotion. With the facility of email and SMS people travel to other countries as easily as in their own lands.
An urgent message reaches faster through Email or cell phone to many people at once, rather than sending a telegram. So the telegram slowly came to an end and the telegraph office is closed.
Children use internet to finish their school assignments. In almost all the languages there are many websites to help them. They see their favourite cartoons, or listen to the music to learn to recite. We mostly depended on our mother to learn all these things.
It is very surprising to see as young as one year old kids holding cell phone and listening to popular bollywood numbers or their favourite rhymes. Grandparents and parents give their costly cell phones to kids and muse over their talent and don’t mind even if the phone is dropped from the kid’s hand. They pamper them and go on saying that the kid is very naughty and they are unable to control him. They say that they do their job on laptop while the child sleeps. If he wakes up he may not allow them to do their job insisting to put on his favourite song or rhyme. May be all are not like this. But generally it is so. Just imagine if this is the state of small children then what would be its effect on grownups?
Face book is a social networking site where very small children open their account and share photos etc. Parents too open their account in face book so children use instagram, make friends and share photos. Children and mostly teenagers use this site. Any instrument that we use gives both advantages and disadvantages. One has to be very cautious while using them. Anybody can open account in these sites and can succeed in fulfilling their evil ideas. Adults sometimes fall prey to these people let alone children and teenagers.
This site is a boon to anti social elements that mostly target young girls and boys. These people target our children in our houses. They make friendship with them, gain confidence, take full advantage of their weaknesses and then come out with their true colours. Those children who do not have their account in these sites are looked down upon and are teased. Some children go to these sites to get over their loneliness and make friends. If they are lucky they get good friends or else they are cheated.
I read an incident online about a girl who made friends in social networking site. After coming from school she used to sit and chat with friends. After few days these so called friends started to comment on her dress and ask her to wear sexy dresses. If she did not abide by their commands they warned her that they would write adversely about her and paste it all over school and would even send to her house. She was forced to do as she was told. She was constantly being black mailed and her obscene pictures were posted in networking sites. Girls in the school stopped talking to her and boys tried to be closer to her asking her to give company to them at night. Finally without trying to know the fact the principal rusticated her from school. She went home and locked her inside her room. Her parents got panicked and after much cajoling she told them everything. They assured her that they would soon leave the place and go live elsewhere and asked her not to worry. She became normal, Spoke happily with them at length and went to her room late in the night. She sat near the webcam and spoke about her parents, her childhood, her ambition, and finally about her online friendship, how she got cheated by them. She posted it on YouTube with a caution note to be careful while making friends online and how she got deceived in the name of friendship. In the morning her parents were shocked to find her dead. They learnt everything from the YouTube. It was a gang that very easily conversed with any age group and got them into confidence. From then on her parents are also trying their best to educate people about the dangers of making friendship with unknown persons.
Girls easily fall prey to such gangs without thinking of any repercussions. There are instances of girls being offered cool drinks laced with drugs by these gangs. When girls became unconscious, then this gang raped them, took photos and posted them online.
Before the starting of these social networks few sociologists have submitted their papers and expressed their view as to how this would lead to sex industry. It would start with obscene photos of teenagers compelled to do as told and slowly into prostitution, without an iota of doubt to anybody about these sites. Now we are witnessing everything as predicted by them.
Parents do go for lock system to prevent their children from going into these sites. What they do not realise is that even the sites like FACE BOOK, they carry on their activities very conveniently without creating any doubt in the minds of on lookers.
According to Leary 26% of the involved in online pornography are children. Two more scholars have conducted a study and found out that59% of children between the age groups of 13 and 17 are involved 6 to 11 285 and another 135 are as small as nursery going kids.
These people hunt for children in social net working sites and catch hold of them and make the site a platform to gain confidence of the children. Some parents very proudly declare that they do not know how to use these electronic equipments and children use them very easily. If parents are not cautious their children may land into great trouble. It is the duty of the parents to make them understand the situation and to be very careful while making friends or going to these sites.
Minor children should not be given cell phones. The argument is that times have changed and children should be given phones. But now all the phones have internet access. It is better not give them such phones. In case they are to be given, explain them the consequences. Keep conversing with children and set timings for the use of internet on cell phone, computer or laptop.
Caution them not to provide their phone numbers or residential address to unknown persons. They are to be explained that they should not accept any kind of invitation for friendship on social networking sites from unknown persons. If they make friends in social networking sites and give away information innocently, people will take advantage of it and by morphing their photos they are used in pornography and are posted online. All these things children should be explained. Moreover computer should be kept in living room where all the other members of the family usually sit. Children become cautious of their parents presence and parents too can keep a watch on them as to what they are doing rather than keeping it in their room.
American academy of paediatrics has recommended that parents should limit children’s tweeting, texting and keep smart phones, laptops out of their bed rooms as unrestricted media use can have serious consequences including violence, cyber bullying, school woes, obesity, lack of sleep and host of other problems.
The policy is aimed at all the children using computers, smart phones and other internet devices. It expands the academy’s recommendations on banning television from children’s bed rooms and limiting entertainment screen time to two hours daily that includes using the internet including face book, twitter, TV and movies. Online homework is an exception.
These are few of the precautions parents should take and let the children enjoy the benefits of social networking sites. CNF
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