Experts warn parents of online dangers

PUNE: In May, a 13-year-old boy from the city was bullied by his classmates on Facebook. A few days later, his parents found that he was unable to speak in public. An otherwise cherubic and capricious kid went numb and was fighting hard to express himself due to low self-esteem.
"It becomes important in such cases to make children understand that the virtual world is not everything.That there is more to life than social media and one cannot let the internet dictate one's life. Along with slumping a child's confidence level, most of these kids that experience cyber-bullying become clinically depressed and are in need of counselling. In extreme cases, even medication is required," says City-based psychiatrist Rohan Jahagirdar.
Most psychiatrists agree that pornography is the biggest threat to children online but interaction with terrorist groups like ISIS have become a fresh menace. They start off to quench their thirst to know more, but because of their malleable age their thinking easily ebbs and flows towards the murkier side. "What happened with those children in Bangladesh was awful but it could have been avoided by timely intervention by someone - parents or guardians. The children were from affluent families and were led to believe that what they did with the other perpetrators of terror was the right thing to do," says Jahagirdar.
Another worrying trend is online addiction among children between the ages of one and four. Atish Laddad, a Mumbai-based paediatrician warns of the repercussions of handing an iPad over to kids of this age group to keep them occupied. "Parents must avoid passing on gadgets to children till they are at least six years old. Personality disorders crop up and brain issues also emanate out of such indulgence," says Laddad.
Laddad says because of excess online activity the creative side of children suffers. "They feed upon pre-determined information that is fed to them from a source, they fail to read beyond that and confine themselves to the world of the internet. Due to this, their social interactions suffer as well," adds Laddad.
"Is the internet bad for the society? Asking that question today is like someone asking 80 years ago if electricity is a bad thing. It all depends on how parents tutor their children to use the internet and decide when to draw a line. For this - parents, guardians and teachers must themselves be aware of the kind of risks that lurk around on the web," says Pallavi Bajpai, a home-maker and mother of two teenagers.
Parents and children find themselves on different sides of the coin about this. According to a study done by Kaspersky Lab Research, the five most common threats faced by children, in their own words, are pornography (8%), virus infections (8%), identity theft, false content on sites, and scenes of violence (6% each). Parents however are certain that the top five threats to children online are pornography (14%), drug- and alcohol-related sites (8%), scenes of violence (8%), virus infections (8%) and internet addiction (7%).
While these cases are not very rampant in Pune, Jahagirdar says parents often overlook the initial stages. "The actual number of cases are more as compared to what parents report to medical care. Only when parents become more watchful, children will get the attention they need fewer will go unattended," added Jahagirdar.
Jahagirdar says, "Last month I treated a kid who was caught by his family indulging himself in Dark web. This side of the internet exposes children to pornography, terrorism, drug abuse and weapons. Lethal as it sounds, its another window to the other side of the otherwise friendly internet."
There are child lock systems available in the market that help guard the children from the "dark side", but psycho and social education of parents on and about the internet is more important. It's not just children who must be woken up to the world that they are entering, but parents also who should educate themselves before letting children enter the web world. "Parents should be thoroughly aware of the kind of exposure their children are subject to when they allow them to make use of the indispensable tool of our lives - internet," says Jahagirdar.
Box: Symptoms -
- Change in behavioural patterns
- Abnormal sleep cycle
- Gastritis and irritable mood
Box: Threats children face online
· Interaction with terrorism related institutions
· Identity Theft
· Cyber-bullying
· Scenes of violence
· Exposure to the Dark or deep web
Box: What is the Dark web
Dark Web - Also called the deep web, it is the world wide web that exists on the peripheries of the internet. It makes use of specific software, configuration and authorization to gain access. It is a hoard of phishing, scams, and unverified information, illegal and ethically disrupted pornography. It can also feature sexual torture and killing of animals and revenge porn. Psychiatrists say cases of children picking on this side of the internet are reported rarely in Pune, but there have been cases of children accessing these sites on and off.