THE technology age has brought ease in conducting various businesses either through the Internet or other modern devices such as mobile phones.
However, concern is increasing in the manner the Internet is being abused and in many instances the culprits have been of the school-going age group.
This scenario has raised concern from various sections of society especially on the need to guard against such practices.
In the area of education, the Internet acts as a resource-base to improve one’s intellectual ability and has helped change society from past years when research data on various topics was hard to come by.
The facility has now brought ease in terms of studies but on the other side, it has brought concern on practices such as accessing material which is regarded as detrimental to morals.
With an array of mobile phone facilities that have Internet accessibility it has become difficult to monitor what most youngsters are using this facility for.
The problem does not fall squarely on children especially pupils even adults tend to use it for varying reasons even wrong ones. Some adults tend to use it for motives such as accessing pornographic sites and luring girls of tender ages.
The vexing issue is how to monitor and control such habits so as to curb moral degradation in society.
In launching a publication called The Newspaper in Education, initiated by the Zambia Daily Mail, Information and Broadcasting Services deputy Minister Forrie Tembo yesterday noted that the advent of the Internet, as good as it may be seems to be distancing children even further away from concentrating on their studies.
Mr Tembo observes that although reading material has been availed closer through the Internet, many children use the medium for other purposes, some of which tend to corrupt their morals.
The Zambian society is already overburdened with practices that were a few years ago alien to our surroundings – pornographic videos via the internet by some students have suddenly become a practice and landing the perpetrators on the bad side of the law.
Moral decay is at society’s door-steps and it has to be fought with all vigour lest there will be no morality to talk about in the near future.
Time and again, we have reminded that teachers and parents have a shared responsibility to inculcate good morals in the children as they spend most of the time with them either at schools or at homes respectively.
However, there should be no limit to who should educate the young ones on morals that are accepted in society.
It is only in yesteryears that even neighbours would institute disciplinary action against a neighbour’s child that is if they were found conducting themselves in a manner not befitting society and all was well back then.
The deputy minister is correct to point out that, as Zambians, we all have a collective responsibility to reverse this sad state-of-affairs by ensuring that children read the right material which enhances their intellectual capacity whenever they log-in on various sites.
Moral decay is one issue that every responsible citizen cannot afford to turn a blind eye to, hence the need for close monitoring of what is being accessed by the young ones.
The Internet presents a number of risks along with a multitude of opportunities and some of the online risks facing the young ones are addiction, exposure to inappropriate material, cyber bullying and sexual solicitation.
Overall, research suggests that specific and targeted efforts may be needed to counter online risks in order for the youths to benefit from the many opportunities offered by the Internet.