The emergence of the Internet facilitated communication, while the optimisation of social media platforms has enriched relationships, improved work and productivity, enhanced medicine, raised the quality of education and the socioeconomic lives of societies.
Technology has facilitated human proximity and communication. The Canadian communicator Marshall McLuhan put it aptly, “Time has seized space has vanished; the world has become a global village”.
Indeed, humanity has gotten closer like never before. The COVID-19 pandemic restricted human mobility, socioeconomic activities, and education. However, through the aid of social media, human activities did not come to a complete cessation.
This has led to societies leveraging social media technology to work from home and perform activities without physically moving.
Unfortunately, like fire, though a good servant, but if caution is thrown to the air can be devastating. Many children today are often seen on phones rather than reading books, engaging with an ICT tool rather than playing with friends outside their homes.
This encourages the inculcation of characters and subjects from social media platforms.
Children’s use of ICT gadgets is not far-fetched.
However, it has to do with the content these children are exposed to, and the restrictions and controls put in place by parents and guardians.
Research
In a recent research conducted by Child Rights International, which targeted children between the ages of five and 12, it found out that these children were spending between two and seven hours online, which exposes them to sexual content, cyber abuse, and exploitation.
The dangers these children are exposed to have led the United Kingdom to ban children under the age of 16 from using social media.
This emanates from the risks that are associated with exposure to unwholesome materials and the alienation from engaging with nature and reality.
Given the findings by Child Rights International, the call is for authorities to ban children under the age of 17 from using social media.
The Psychologist Albert Bandura, in his famous research on observational learning, found the impact of what children watch on their psyche. A child may act out what they watch, which often times, if not guarded, can be devastating.
Hence, the call to restrict children's use of ICT gadgets and access to certain sites is right. Additionally, these children are at a stage that the child psychologist describes as a critical period.
This is before puberty, when these children are inclined to language and knowledge.
Therefore, if the child is not redirected toward reading books and interacting with friends, they stand to loose reality and problem solving skills.
In addition, the overreliance on these gadgets can lead to the dulling of the agility of the mind.
The dependence on these ICT gadgets to serve as a means of reference for information, storage, and retrieval makes the mind dull, nab, and less critical.
If care is not taken and these children fall into this situation, their education will suffer.
Is it the case that what we fear is emerging, what we were running from has caught up with us, or what we prayed against is manifesting?
We must take the bull by the horns and nip this unfortunate situation in the bud.
The call for a ban of these teenagers and children from the use of social media and ICT gadgets is also due to their fragility to injurious contents and threat to education.
The writer is Head, Corporate Affairs,
Complementary Education Agency,
(Ministry of Education)
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