Commentary - Journal of Public Health Policy and Planning (2020) Volume 4, Issue 4
Guide of childrens online activities by parents: A gateway to protecting and enhancing their appropriate development, secure their future and reduce burden on Public Health.
Children online activities are of various categories, some are beneficial and some harmful to their wellbeing and development. For instance, children make use of phones of various types to browse online, and utilize both personal and cybercafé computers (desktop and laptop systems) to browse. Beneficial uses to which they engage online activities include search for information to- solve assignments they are given in school (Pre-college and college), play and download music (which relaxes the mind and body), download films for recreation (though some may teach them bad things and ideas), search for sports related information of their favorite sportsmen and teams, chat with friends for association and socials), and communicate with relations of distant geographical locations. Harmful effects includes- exposure to risk of being absorbed as members of terrorist groups under disguise, involvement in internet fraud and scams, download and watching of cartoon (fictional videos which may over glue them into an unreal world of excessive fantasies they could wrongly and fatally connect with as reality in life). It has been proven that overindulgence of children on virtual or fictional watching of films disconnects them from lessons, knowledge and real life cognitive experiences they are to learn from real life interactions with parents, guardians, good friends and good relations. These sort of lessons cannot be learnt by being over-glued on phone and computer screens watching fictional cartoon and playing games. As such, this piece of review is significant and of positive value in supporting the rightful development of our children, in order to help secure their future, through reduction in the number of those who could be at risk of being plagued by the negative effects of children’s online activities.Author(s): Ozurumba-Dwight LN*, Gazama UN