The internet has become a central element of life in this 21st century digital age. Children as the most vulnerable group, a large number of them become victims of circumstance in this wicked world of internet.
The fact that there are very good aspect of the internet that provide inspirational, educational, religious as well as moral site that can develop one physical and psychological being, but children when not properly guided will be exposed to the injurious internet side that are dedicated to harmful content such as pornography, obscene pop-up online gambling as well as violent online games that are capable of installing violent behavior into children.
However, the internet usage among children especially social media continues to grow public health concern as children who use desktop, laptop, Ipad with wide screen are linked with repetitive motion injuries like , tanned and eye damage by the rapidly flashing images of certain website pages, video game motion and many other slide motions and images on the internet.
Therefore, children with easy access to internet become less able to separate facts from fiction, this is because the internet do not frequently filter or edit and review document before posting them online, anyone can publish anything on internet for example the Wikipedia allows anybody edit and publish anything in their site, with just a click on the blue text on Wikipedia one can change the content of the site, with out considering the ethical standard of writing and publishing on the popular mainstream way of publications.
The dangerous effects of internet have crept into educational and academic life of children. Rebecca Iliya a junior secondary school teacher in government secondary school Girei in Adamawa state; called “the internet the enemy of success.”
She also added that some of her students chat on social media such as 2go, Face book and twitter while lessons are going on. They hid under desk and forget about the cause of their study even as they chat online.
Rebecca as well lamented the use of abbreviations by her students even during continues assessment test and examinations, that some of the students she said abbreviate words like come and write it like this CM, see like this C and so on, it is itching us teachers when marking their scripts, she said”.
Madam Rebecca concluded by saying the internet usage among her students resulted to loneliness and depression as the students isolate during breakfast time to chat online and they spent less time with their friends.
The internet exposure among children has increased most significantly in recent years, in developed countries such as a United States of America (U.S. A) Children as young as two years of age are exposed to internet.
Desensitization to violent stimuli by excessive usage of internet by children according Jacob Raymond a father of two kids is another dangerous effect of internet to children, Jacob also said the internet reduces children attention span, diminishing memory, as everything can be found on the online; skimming through pages, cognitive overload, multitasking which reduce their focus on studies and growing impatience, as children want instant enjoyment.
The excessive usage of internet can certainly be a distraction to kids; children’s online activities should be monitored that they may not be affected negatively.
Internet addiction makes children lose interest in other activities such as academy focus, having time with family members, meeting new friends.
Parents should enforce limit on the amount of time their children spent online that they may not be exposed to dangerous element of the internet such obscenity, pornography, social networking site for unnecessary chatting with pointless people that can inflame children’s life with unsafe component of their lives.
Tell them to control their internet usage and let their friends know they have log out or blackout time when they will not answer text messages, emails, responding to social media chat.
Great power often comes with great responsibility, internet has created new challenges for the society and the threatening impact is on children, as internet addition is recognized in many countries as disorder that is why in developed countries rehabilitation centers have been created to get over the negative effect of the internet.
No doubt, internet is one of the greatest inventions that contributed immensely to mankind, the internet has made the entire world a single entity (global village) that within a twinkle of an eye one can know and tell what is happening everywhere in the world but its lack of regulation make it more dangerous than any medium of communication, it has vast influence among people of different age group, most importantly vulnerable (children), Children academic performance suffers.
For this reason, parents should closely monitor their children’s online activities and encourage them to access inspirational, educative as well as religious internet sites that can build their moral upbringing and educational development, tell them about the negative as well as positive effects of the internet when they are still kids, so that when they grow up, they will not depart from it.
BY OBIDAH TERI BITRUS, 300 LEVEL STUDENT OF MASS COMMUNICATION DEPARTMENT UNIVERSITY OF MAIDUGURI