PACHU MENON
The enquiries into the death of the 7-year-old boy during the Saptah fair in Vasco which brought forth startling revelations would be a chapter that we Goans wouldn’t want to forget that easily, at least for the shocking aspect of the whole incident.
An 11-year-old lures the victim with balloons to the terrace of a building with the intention of having unnatural sex with him, and in his bid to escape from his clutches, the other boy falls to his death while climbing down a drainage pipe.
But where from do children barely into their teens get notions of sex, and that too an ardent wish to try out the most bizarre of acts which are against the very diktats of nature?
After a lot of pondering, one has to admit that there is a serious need to examine the wider implications of the internet revolution.
Mobile phones, though handy tools, have however proved to be a curse for mankind. With the ready availability of various software applications that make surfing the net all the more convenient, thoughts of misuse of the gadget might have never warranted a second thought.
But this is where the elders have faltered. With children early on in their lives showing a strong susceptibility to fall prey to the attractions of the mobile, the filth that they assimilate in the course of this fascination is enough to lead them astray.
Juvenile crimes that have been on the rise of late are a direct offshoot of this addiction.
Moreover, the type of lifestyle that the modern generation ascribes to has invariably taken its toll and the kids have been the first casualty.
With working parents finding it difficult to guide their children in their formative years, the inadvertent negligence has cost them dear. All along it has been the mobile that has been keeping the child company. One can well imagine the influence a mobile phone has on the lives of the
little ones.
In my opinion, kids and teens should not be given access to cell phones. Although owning one presumably gives them a feeling of superiority over their lesser fortunate peers, the negative aspects of possessing one far outweigh the advantages of having one.
While the phone allows the parents to stay in touch with their kids always, the extra sense of security and safety that a cellphone provides could be that one factor which has found favour with the elders as regards their children being allowed mobiles.
At the same time, we should not be forgetting that today’s cell phones offer almost complete internet access and a wide array of apps that are much harder to filter and control.
Teens like to have the latest of smart phones and pester their parents for one. Seen as a step towards independence and a status symbol among their friends, it is ultimately the obsession with cell phones which has proved to be the bane amongst kids.
Moreover, besides putting the child at risk for getting in trouble over a host of malicious misdemeanors, cell phone radiation is also known to have very harmful effects on kids.
Besides, with the vast range of prices, even those from the lower strata of society are able to afford one.
Just as flights were the prerogative of the rich and swanky once upon a time, mobile phones in their original avatar were possessions that were taken to indicate a person’s wealth or high social or professional status.
But such have been the promotional and marketing strategies involved over the years that picking one off the shelf has not been too cumbersome a task for consumers these days, so much so that even a short span of time without a mobile phone is considered a curse nowadays.
No wonder there is so much of resentment over bad signals and connectivity these days. Internet has become a necessity for modern living that were it to shutdown suddenly all hell would break loose. That’s how dependent we are on the Internet.
The Internet has now become an integral part of our lives. This is due to commercialisation and how all aspects of modern life revolve around it. The term ‘Google’ is today synonymous with searching on the Internet.
Facebook and Whatsapp have become household terms in the present era and people who don’t have these ‘accounts’ are thought to be living in primitive times. Social networking sites are proliferating with each passing day.
It is, however, the palpable effect the cell phones (and their use) have on the psyche of the teens that needs to be given a serious thought. As gateways to a range of ‘wonders’, it is the curiosity to satisfy their amazements that has been their undoing. It is said that the mental faculty of a child should develop with his age. Hence there are prescribed syllabi that educational institutions adopt to ensure that their curricula brings about the best in their wards and they in turn can contribute to the building of the nation.
But with so much of material available just at the tap of a finger, a child is an adult even before he realizes the bland truth, thanks to the cellular revolution that modern technology is scripting.
Web pornography’s effect on children have been profound. Finding pornography sites on the net is not too difficult a task. Visiting sexually explicit sites either deliberately or accidentally children get hooked on to the habit and teens begin to show a marked change in their sexual attitudes and behaviour.
Inquisitiveness makes matters that are taboo subjects of interest for everyone. Children are no different. If only the service providers show the alacrity to block sites that have a scandalizing effect on the children, we may yet be able to save our children from the horrible ills of the Net. This would, however, be a distant dream for there is no denying the fact that the evolution of the Internet changed from research to commerce and from a safe proposition to a scary visage.
A healthy society is not only physically fit but also mentally perceptive. While admitting that weaning away the youth from modernity is not the solution to these social malaises; but are sustained efforts being made by the elders in the society to educate the teens to be their own judges and wisely choose the rights and wrongs that help in their character building.
Are smartphones really that smart
for kids?
