‘Social media proving serious threat to child’s development’
Date :19-Oct-2020
Staff Reporter :
Children are hooked to hi-tech gadgets for keeping pace with education in times of pandemic, but on flip side, the widely circulated videos of violent crimes are posing a big problem for parents as how to screen their wards from watching these gory clips. Now with on-line classes making it mandatory to have mobiles on hand, for parents, the increasing worry is giving them nightmares as experts claim children who regularly watch such videos, become numb to the violence and show more aggressive behaviour. At times, it may even unknowingly push children to commit crime. Recently, a goon was killed at a busy city square in front of several bystanders. The whole sequence of the killing was caught on CCTV camera at the square and the video soon went viral on social media.
The video was watched by lakhs of citizens, including children, as there was no censoring the content. The Hitavada broached up the topic with experts to reach at bottom of the debate and come up with some measures to insulate children from such unruly social media menace. Rita Aggarwal, Consulting Psychologist, was of the view that, social media is not the new problem in the education as many teachers were sending lessons on WhatsApp to children. It’s for parents to enforce their writ and limit the timing for which a child can possess the smartphone, now that it is must in view of COVID-19 outbreak. The parents should be more vigilant rather than controlling and the usage of smart phones be limited to education purpose only. She further said that social media addiction has become a headache in the family and there no denying the connection between it and aggression among children.
Aggarwal suggested that parents should engage the children in energetic activities and divert their attention and properly channelise their energies. The parents should think about past time activities they can offer to children and it can automatically cut down exposure to screen time. Social media expert, Ajit Parse said that, on earlier occasion also, such violent crime videos were widely circulated on the social media. But, that time, internet gadgets were not freely available to every child as they are currently. Now that e-education is the new norm, every child right from the age of six-years is exposed to the internet gadgets.
The on-line education system though solved the problem of children’s education but it is also creating playing tricks with children unpolluted mind as they have access to mountain of information but do not posses capability to separate wheat from the chaff, he pointed out. Such violent crime videos are available on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and that can be blocked by just clicking on the ‘Report’ button, Parse added.