“The exploitation of children as a market is a global phenomenon comparable to climate change. The connections and their serious economic costs are not yet obvious but the social wreckage is accumulating.”
Patricia Edgar, ‘Childhood Under Siege,’ AGE 13 January, 2007
From 2009, all Indus schools will introduce the One Laptop per Child policy with a completely wifi campus to enable students to connect anywhere anytime. The Indus vision is to employ technology as a tool for creating creative independent learners, an educational imaginary wherein the burden of learning shifts from the teacher to the student.
We live in a digital world where technology is in the driving seat and where the young are the greatest users and beneficiaries of information communication technologies. Not many are aware that the single biggest users of Internet are children! The vast range of emerging technologies that are currently emerging is awesome – social networks to Instant Messaging, VoIP, iPods, Online Multiplayer Gaming Environments and Virtual Worlds.
The story so far is a matter of serious concern and discomfort. The virtual world is not without serious threats that require awareness and understanding by parents, teachers and children. There are real dangers on the Internet – predators, identity theft, viruses, spyware, sexual harassment and myspace.com. Pornography sales in 2007 crossed the $ 23 billion mark with 4 million porn websites hosted for children. 12-17 is the age range of the largest consumers of porn, and 90 percent of 8-16 year olds have viewed porn. A 2006 study said that revenue from Internet porn exceeds, by nearly 2 to 1, the combined revenue of ABC, CBS and NBC. Moreover, porn websites are visited three times more often than Google, Yahoo and MSN combined. The new craze now is porn by cell phone.
The threat does not end here. It is guesstimated that of every five children who surf the Internet, at least one child has been solicited sexually online.
Regrettably, there is insufficient research on how best parents and schools can intervene to reduce the impact of technology and protect children from the downside of virtual reality. Adults look upon technology as a tool for learning while adolescents see it as an essential part of their social life. This is the dichotomy we have not been able to resolve so far. There is irrefutable evidence regarding the social uses of technology, with a new emphasis on “connection.” Surveys indicate that 60 percent of the most enthusiastic users of technology are extraverted. They lead an active social and engaged lifestyle at work and at home. It’s the majority of reluctant users of technology and computers who turn out to be introverts.
Parents forever seem unhappy about their children wasting time chatting on the net or playing games mindlessly. Their philosophies are at cross purposes: the young are “digital natives” while parents and teachers belong to the category of digital immigrants.” The challenge goes even beyond. Parents pray that this is a passing phase; it isn’t. Schools on the other hand are convinced that they will harness the Internet; they won’t. And governments believe technology can be restricted; it can’t, it never will. How do we arrive at a common ground? How do we provide our children a moral compass that will enable them to exploit technology for learning and remain connected to the community? How do we protect them from online predators? These are some key issues we need to address proactively.
We propose that there is an emergent need to create a forum for greater awareness and understanding of the threats, the risks and the joint responsibilities we have, particularly in terms to child safety. We need to have a strategic meeting of key minds to develop strategies on how technology is best used to leverage school learning, and at the same time, allow children the wonders of exploring the virtual world in a safe environment.
Towards these leadership objectives, the Indus Trust is organizing a global summit on Internet Safety for Children on 18 October 2008, at Bangalore. The summit will host an open marketplace of ideas and strategies by experts, as well as all those affected, to explore issues, identify challenges, and recommend prevention and intervention strategies on how best to use the digital medium.
At the end of the summit we hope that the coalition of parents, teachers, children and community will arrive at a pragmatic approach on how best children can use media technologies and also protect themselves from its downsides. We believe this is the greatest social issue before society. India is looking for a leadership role in ‘cyber safety,’ an issue that affects children, corporations and high court judges alike. We hope the Summit will explore shared ideas of children, teachers, parents and the community, in recommending pedagogic and social structures and immunities to protect our children, while at the same time giving them the freedom to travel freely through the virtual world.
The Summit does not aim to find ‘quick fixes.’ We realize that the end of the Summit is just the beginning
