Time out: Are children spending too much time online?

THE internet in the time of COVID-19 is both a blessing and a curse.

With the COVID-19 pandemic and the movement control order (MCO) demanding a need for physical distancing and staying at home, children and their families are turning to digital solutions as a means to socialise, play and learn.

Furthermore, with schools being closed, most sports and extracurricular activities being prohibited, online games, social media as well as instant messaging apps have provided the opportunity for children to connect and play with their friends.

On the education front, the pandemic has reshaped children’s learning experience so much so that digital learning and the introduction of technology and virtual platforms are becoming substitutes for the classroom.

On the flipside, this meant that more children are spending an excessive amount of time being glued to the screens of their smart devices.

This has prompted many parents to ask: Are the children overexposed to the internet? How much screen time is too much, really?

Excessive screen time among children has been a concern long before the pandemic came a-knocking, and there is no doubt that the pandemic has made it worse.

In fact, experts have warned that children who spend too much time on digital devices face increased risks of physical and mental health problems. Obesity, vision problems, depression, anxiety and sleep disturbance are only some of the repercussions of overexposure to internet and digital devices, which have been on the rise lately.

While the internet is a space that can contribute to positive social and psychological wellbeing, when chosen over face-to-face interactions, it can affect children’s mental health and lead to them growing up being socially isolated from their peers and developing anti-social behaviour.

The solution – as parents may already know –is supervision. Parents need to keep tabs on the kind of technology their children are being exposed to and the amount of time spent on their devices.

Schools, too, have an important role to play by encouraging more physical interaction and ensuring that the children remain active as much as possible on school grounds. this can be done by placing more emphasis on good cyber citizenship and teaching children to be more digitally resilient and savvy.

However, schools can only do so much, because once children leave school grounds, the responsibility then shifts to the parents to ensure that they children use technology sparingly, and within reason.

After all, digital media has become part and parcel of everyday life. While there is nothing wrong with introducing children to the wonders of the internet, this doesn’t mean that they should be given free reins to it. – April 11, 2021

 

Photo credit: Ludovic Toinel on Unsplash 

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