Can you vouch for Netizens in this era? - ITREALMS

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The viral events on social media space recently, have left many wondering if the 21st century parents could still vouch for their Netizens children, asks REMMY NWEKE.

Preamble:

Growing up, one thing parents do easily is knowing their children well enough to vouch for them simply because often they all live under one roof, especially mothers.

Vouch, according to Lexicon experts is to assert or confirm as a result of one's own experience that something is true or accurately so described; especially human which could mean to swear an oath or give an undertaking. So, can parents of nowadays vouch of their children? Before you answer, let us look at what digital era entails.

What is digital era:

Online open source encyclopedia, Wikipedia.org described ‘Digital Era’ as being characterized by technology which increases the speed and breadth of knowledge turnover within the economy and society. While evolutionary theorists, posits digital era as a state that sustainability relies largely on knowledge turnover.

Expatiating on what is digital age or era, experts at Wikipedia.org noted that the Information Age also known as the computer age, digital age, or new media age, is a historical period that began in the mid-20th century, characterized by a rapid epochal shift from traditional industry established by the Industrial Revolution to an economy primarily based upon Information Technology (IT).

The digital revolution, according to Michael Clarke, in one of the Academic and Professional Publishing, of sciencedirect.com, started around 1980 with the Internet and after with mobile devices, social networking, big data, and computing clouds, revolutionized work practices in healthcare.

Better family live versus parenting:

Nowadays, the above scenario is most likely not going to be the case as most parents try to literally better their family lives by every spouse working which culminate in leaving home very early due to traffic in the cities and returning very late at night, thereby leaving the children at the messy of their nannies.

This desire for a better live, leaves the children whose parents could not get nannies to become street urchins at various levels, including being a pet to both online and offline predators, more so given the increasing online presence of children essentially born during the digital era also known as netizens; a term arising from the combination of the English words internet and citizen, as in a "citizen of the net" or "net citizen" thus it describes a person actively involved in online communities or the Internet in general.

It is this netizen that has actually made busy parents to look like fools who may not know what they are doing and reducing them to a bunch of irresponsible parents.

Chrisland @Bhadgurl4k:

Classic example of such was the recent Chrisland girl who was involved in a sex escapade in the far away Dubai which found its way into the Internet, which led to the mother taking to social media to drop a video, accusing the school of neglect and trying to spoil her little girls name, alleging she was drugged, but the sex-video that eventually went viral showed a sexually exposed girl whose age was initially placed at 10 whilst she was 13, thus denting the over 40 years of Chrisland for the sake of “Truth or Dare” purported game trend by @Bhadgurl4k. Thank God the Lagos State after a hasty closure of the school reopened it barely a week later and the Burdgirl4uk remain suspended with her accomplices.

Orchestrated divorce:

Then came online, another narrative that a certain two daughters conspired against their father alleging he was raping both of them in the absence of the mother who in pursuit of greener pasture relocated to Canada and working out plans for the entire family to join her later. Their father’s ‘sin’ was for insisting that their friendship and attitudes have begun to overstep the family bounds and he decided to drop them at school and pick them as well when school closes. This revelation came about three years after their mother believed the ‘good’ daughters now and divorced the husband, whilst she took the children back to Canada and he managed to get remarried. Devastated woman is now left at a crossroad.

Mom turns hotel detective:

Yet, another expose was that of a woman who took her daughter penultimate Sunday back to school after a holidays and was called up three days that the said daughter had not reported for the term. Imagine the agony of searching for a child you personally dropped off at school and even took her belongings to her hostel door only to be declared absent or missing. Aside making her mother turn ‘hotel detective’ in search of her as the only lead was that she had a date with someone she met on Facebook, thereafter, no traces. Luckily, she was later dumped at the school gate after serial raping marathon that lasted for a week with multiple partners with her legs and hands tied. Of course the school suspended her and she lost an academic year.

Then, a man returned from work about 6pm and did not see one of the sons. He was told Senior went on errand since 4.30pm. Eventually when Senior turned up about 9.30pm to e reveal he went from the errand to a betting house at the street nearby and in fact, has been betting for over a year as at the time of the report.

Being awesome parents:

Experts at the HealthyChidren.org advised that parents must not provide digital media for toddlers younger than 18 to 24 months other than video chatting. For children 18 to 24 months, watch digital media with them because they learn from watching and talking with you. Limit screen use for pre-school children, ages 2 to 5, to just 1 hour a day of high-quality programming.

Parents are encouraged to have confident in their understanding of digital devices, apps, games, and ability to help guide their children at every age to ensure a positive experience online.

It is imperative that parental efforts and practices for comprehending, supporting, and regulating children's activities in digital environments cannot be over emphasized, even as growing research on digital parenting identified the main approaches that could allow parents to “mediate” children's activities with digital technologies effectively, such as co-viewing of digital media, parents could influence their children's viewing experiences through their monitoring practices. Monitoring can take many forms, including co-use, setting time limits, setting rules around types of content and active mediation.

Noteworthy is a system of parenting known as ‘Helicopter parenting.’ This, experts said are parents who pay ‘extremely close’ attention to their kids' activities and schoolwork in an effort to not only protect them from pain and disappointment, but to help them succeed. Helicopter parents are known to hover over their children and become overly involved in their lives.

There is a school of thought that parents should introduce the likes of Google Family Link or FindMyKids apps among others to help and like Lewis Cummins posited, parents need to keep their children active through building a relationship with them to pave the way for introduction of pros and cons for children using technology, thereby educating your kids on the importance of real-life interactions. In setting clear boundaries would encourage independence, open communication and bolstering positive interactions, in order to know the veracity of vouching for their children in digital era.

To ensure parents and children have a healthy relationship, a Social psychologist, Sonia Livingstone, had suggested during a recent Ted Talk, that the key lies in embracing technology alongside children and laying out a practical roadmap for how to get there. So, what are you waiting for? As a parent, take a step today, after all, a journey of a mile begins with a step.