DHAHRAN, 6 May — Internet has no doubt revolutionized our society and has enabled us to roam the entire world through our keyboard. It has translated the cliche of the world as a global village into a reality. It has brought together millions of surfers and has broadened our vision. At the same time, it has started taking away the innocence of our children and maturing them well before their age.
In an open society like the United States, parents as well as educationists have expressed concern about the exposure of our children via the Internet to material unsuitable for them. There have been moves to create firewalls on many sites in order to prohibit access by small children who surf the Net.
If we view things in totality, we will find that the Net has defied the natural process of aging and a 10-year-old suddenly sounds too mature, even more mature than a 25-year-old who does not have access to the Internet.
Just last fortnight, newspapers carried a story about an 11-year-old child who hacked into Bill Gates’ identity, stole his credit card number and ordered Viagra for Gates. Apparently many readers just saw the humorous angle of the story, laughed it off and pushed it out of their mind. What they failed to see in the story was the maturity of that little 11-year-old, who understood the humorous part of Viagra. It is certainly a very dangerous signal for the future, when an 11-year-old understands the intricacies of youth, the human libido and factors revolving around those libidos.
The other day, my 13-year-old son, who is allowed to surf at the weekends just for a couple of hours, under our supervision, opened a new site — www.cheatindex.com. This site gives hundreds of codes to cheat in computer and video games, including PlayStation. Apparently it was a very innocuous site — no sex, no crime just codes. But it does hurt the competitive spirit of the child. He is taught tricks to outmaneuver his opponents, not by intelligence or skill but by sheer trickery. Tomorrow the same child will surf to find out some other cheating skills to outmaneuver his or her teachers and examiners. Who knows? Such sites might already actually exist.
At a weekend party, one of my friends very proudly announced that her son was mastering in breaking codes. She didn’t realize that it was the beginning of a dreadful career for her son which might one day lead to breaking of safes and vaults. In simple English this is called theft and, unfortunately, parents take this as sign of intelligence.
My son and the son of my friend represent a substantial number of children who are exposed to this technological advancement and they ought to be monitored. Checks and balances are required. Certainly the wonder of information technology has added altogether new horizons to human existence. Truly, the whole world is virtually on our keyboard.
Just a tap on a key and we have access to an ocean of information. There is no denying the fact that Internet is proving to be a fountain of knowledge. At the same time it has also exposed the society to extreme evils. To list those evils is superfluous, we all are aware of them and we can imagine the extent of the destruction on a child’s mind when those evils — perverted information and contents — reach his unpolluted mind.
Putting a curb on the use of Internet by children will never serve the purpose, as his curious mind will always yearn for it, especially when we continue with our unrestricted surfing and browsing. It’s rather like a case of active and passive smoking, where a child becomes a passive smoker as his elders smoke packets and packets of cigarettes.
The child becomes a passive surfer, influenced by his parents and develops the craving!
A child has to be educated about Internet and its effect on him in general and on society in particular. He has to be guided into the cyberspace with patience and self-control. A pressure has to be built up against sites which could pollute human mind and expose him to some very unproductive information.
The recent closure of sex sites by Yahoo from pressure by several Middle East countries is one such example where people can take a decision about what they want to learn and what they don’t. Children of the 21st century are already a burdened generation. Are we going to burden them with information they just could not digest?