Monitoring children's internet use

When it comes to the use of internet, children are more efficient in using it. It is often seen that children are teaching their parents and guardians the ICT skills. Some families fail to understand that their children are making excessive use of the internet. Many children with a tech-savvy mind browse internet hour after hour causing damage to their physical and mental health.
During this Covid-19 pandemic when children are attending classes online, they are spending a lot of time on the net. This puts them into a series of other risks - addiction to gadget, gaming, browsing port sites, cyber bullying, sexual harassment or even indoctrination to extremism.
Children are also found to have been chatting and watching videos for hours. Even when they attend classes online, some of them privately chat with friends and unknown people - in most cases by stopping their videos, and sometimes keeping videos on. When youngsters are kept from using internet, they become impatient and restless, and start demanding access to the internet, wifi password.
Children cannot be refrained from using the internet completely in this 'big data' age. So, this is the time when children should be taught to use theinternet properly. At the same time, it is important that parents and guardians know 'parental guidance' about how to control internet use by the children. Children can be inspired to use internet in front of other family members.
MA Islam
Dhanmondi, Dhaka