Should children be allowed to use the internet ?

Nowadays getting internet access becomes very easier. Anyone can access this from an urban area to a remote village in the hill. Modernization facilitates this service all over the world for everyone. Though to some extent it can be called blessing it also brings some problems too. Using unguarded internet sometimes bring about trouble, for instance – recent trend of suicide by playing blue whale game.

should children use internet ?

In modern society being able to use it intelligently is almost a necessity. Children should use the internet, but not unguardedly or arbitrarily to a limited extent. That is the point: It must be used intelligently. And that intelligence must be taught. The Internet gives access to all types of services. From religious ethics to unethical site what makes a children’s character lose. Addiction to the internet sometimes tells upon children’s eyesight, study, familial relationship, etc. I’m going to describe some of the reasons why children’s should use internet limitedly and guardedly:-

Using the internet is too easy, just Google a question. Using other resources teaches children to think more than if they use an internet search engine and then just cut and paste into a report. Using other sources makes them think about where to find better information. The internet can lead to lazy researching. Atrocious spelling and grammar is a problem.

Some sites are not suitable for children. If they use the internet a lot they are liable to experiment and find all sorts of undesirable things, which are unethical. Social media can lead to contact with undesirable people. It is well known that some people use social media to make contact with unsuspecting others for despicable purposes. Many of those people adopt false personalities to mislead their victims.

A child will probably be unable to properly judge a person with whom they are ‘friends’  and may fall foul of such people and end up in trouble. This type of social media identification of those with whom we communicate as ‘friends’ may mislead a child into misbelieving the benevolence of the person at the other end.

The child needs to be taught who ‘friends’ really are: ‘Stranger Danger’ should be observed on the internet as well as outside in the real world. Sitting at a computer too long is bad for the child’s posture and physical health, as well as any damage to their mental and psychological health due to absorbing some of the rubbish from the internet.

Children need physical exercise, so they should be shooed away from the computer as much as possible. The recommended limit of sedentary activities per day per child is usually about four hours: many children exceeded that limit. Most often, using the internet is a solitary occupation.

Though children sometimes share work at school, using the internet at home tends to be done alone. It is desirable that children have social interaction with their peers and elders. Knowing how to behave with other people is just as important as knowing how to use a computer, and, I believe, more important for the child’s future wellbeing as a socially functioning adult in modern society.

Too often children who use the internet as a source of information simply cut and paste what they find into an essay or report, without acknowledging the source or interpreting the content in any way. They don’t really understand what it all means since that have probably only looked at one or two websites and simply copied a paragraph or two without bothering to think much about it. This leads to bad research practices and is dishonest in not identifying the source of the information and who wrote it.

It is there today and gone tomorrow. Sometimes a web site cannot be revisited to check the information gained from it previously because it has moved, been closed down or hasn’t been kept up to date. It may have been changed on the whim of the owner or because he has found new information or taken on a new belief. What’s there today may not be what will be there tomorrow or the day after, so it shouldn’t be trusted too far.

– Arifur Rahman

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