The Nigerian child and social media addiction: where is the middle ground?
Editor’s note: In this week’s column for Naij.com, Ubaka Chukwuka Maximus looks at how the Internet is altering the lives of Nigerian children and where technology fits in traditional African child-rearing model.
The annoying love the youths have for social media networks is unprecedented. If these vibrant teenagers took studies to heart this diligently, WAEC, UMTE and other examination bodies would definitely be singing a different song. If undergraduates spent more time studying than chatting strangers, lecturers would deal less with Internet abbreviations and acronyms in written examinations. Most students have probably forgotten the real spelling of some words.
Addiction is a disease. People naturally join social networking sites to catch up with old and current friends, to share life events and opinions, and to be part of a community in general. However, these online communities are not safe for nascent minds. Apart from academic decay, social media networks have promoted sexual immorality and covert prostitution to an alarming level. Social media are killing the child in our children, it is corrupting their innocence and affects positive relationship culture among youths.
Young girls feel more and more pressured to be sexually promiscuous while online in order to get attention from boys. Online chats encourage sexual bullying. Interactions on social media are sexualized, so is posting and self representation. Nude pictures on social media are no longer frowned at. Bloggers have worsened the trend as they regularly post pornography pictures and videos just to get the attention of Internet users.
Social media are not friends to your child. Facebook, WhatsApp, BBM and other allied platforms reduce their users to a common denominator thereby allowing kids to interact with people old enough to be their parents in a careless manner. These treacherous adults respond by engaging unsuspecting children in adult talks. Shamefully, amoral men are using social media networks to scout for young innocent girls, with promises as bait. Fraudsters lure children into despicable acts. Raw videos and images are easily transferred and children watch these items in their rooms and classrooms, unbeknownst to parents.
The Internet, the universal set of social media networks, has created a distinction between indoors and street-level prostitution. Street prostitutes have leveraged on word-of-mouth advertising using social media and online dating websites to run more efficient business. Dating sites are notorious in grooming young girls for pleasures.
Inasmuch as we cannot stop the growth of Internet-related technologies, we must make effort in mitigating their negative effects. Parents and guardians are advised to eschew the pressures and pleas by children to acquire an Internet-enabled phone. This is because the easiest way to protect children is to deny them unrestricted access to the Internet.
Nevertheless, each family should have an Internet connection via a computer or through a general phone meant for everyone for the purpose of completing school assignments or surfing for information. The computer must be stationed somewhere in the sitting room. The practice of allowing children below the age of 18 uncensored access to the Internet is morally and psychologically unhealthy.
The Western concept of giving minors unnecessary privacy is unafrican. Parents should monitor what sites children visit, who they chat with, if at all such privileges are allowed. The log history should always be checked regularly noting what might have been deleted. The untimely death of Cynthia Osokogu is still fresh in our memory. If an adult and well-exposed lady like Cynthia can be lured to her death, imagine the vulnerability of a minor! There are many young girls who have gone the way of Cynthia, since we only know of her case because of the media coverage.
The child needs help if he or she is more glued to the phone than studies. A child’s upbringing is a herculean task and the Internet environment has made it more strenuous. Children learn new character traits from strangers through chatting and then turn rebellious at home.
Children are not as helpless as we think, but this new form of communication is making it difficult for them to be young and innocent in heart and thought. Parents are losing control of their children, and the government should as a matter of necessity pass anti-pornography laws, especially child pornography. Let’s protect the Nigeria child from the wild online community because a stitch in time saves nine.
Maximus Chukwuka for Naij.com
Mr Chukwuka is a graduate of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
This article expresses the author’s opinion only. The views and opinions expressed here do not necessarily represent those of Naij.com or its editors.
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