Two sets of related and concerning sets of figures released this week have shown the concerning effects that today’s hi-tech world may be having on our children.
The first is the chilling finding that 25 per cent of Maltese children have received sexual messages online, as revealed on Tuesday as part of the EU Kids Online Survey is frightening considering that most kids’ online activity inevitably takes place away from parents’ prying eyes.
The figure, coupled with the other finding that 10 per cent had themselves sent or posted sexual content online. That the internet has its seedy corners and dark underbelly is no secret, but considering its high usage amongst, in this case, nine- to 16-year-olds, a degree of caution needs to be applied.
A second set of figures, reported in today’s paper which show that, in fact show that while over half of today’s Maltese youngsters on average spend four or more hours online on a typical weekday, the older age groups were more likely to spend between one and three hours online during the week.
This leaves for a wide disparity, and cause for concern especially when it comes to those kids of a younger age of a younger age who may be less able to discern who, or what kind of person they may be connecting with online.
While today’s new means of communication have beyond any doubt changed the way in which life is lived, that technological progress also has its pitfalls – pitfalls that parents may not fully appreciate.
The vast majority of Maltese minors have internet access at home, many in the privacy of their bedrooms or their smartphones. This, on one hand, is positive and all due credit should be given to past initiatives aimed at bringing the country’s children into the now vital online world.
But with that growth comes a parallel growth in the online threats potentially faced by children navigating the sometimes murky waters of the internet. This is not to say that the internet is a cesspool of seediness and paedophiles, but the internet does have a more ominous underbelly, and one that is easily accessible at the click of a mouse.
Nor does it mean that parents need to track every keystroke their children make. At the end of the day, however, today’s parents of teenagers, children who are so immersed in today’s world of social networking, need a wake-up call.
They need to be made aware of what their children may be doing or be exposed to in today’s multi-faceted, wonderful yet perilous online world, a world rendered even more dangerous given the natural ups and downs of adolescence.
What it means is that parents need to properly educate their children about the potential dangers of the online world. It means that children themselves need to be made wise enough to not tumble into those pitfalls.
Parents, and teachers, have a responsibility to children to help them through these new means of communication and to see children using them for instructive, rather than destructive, purposes.