Do you find your children hooked to gadgets? Well, children who are aged below eight years and are using cellphones for a longer period of time could suffer from retarded brain growth impacting their future.
These are some of key insights offered at a webinar on ‘Digital parenting — need of the hour’, hosted by the AP CID, along with Cyber Peace Foundation as part of E- Rakshabandhan on Day Five of the-two week long interactive programmes with students, parents and career professionals on the dangers lurking in cyber space and the ways one can protect themselves.
Additional Director-General, CID, P.V Sunil Kumar, who initiated the webinars, said the Andhra Pradesh police had always been on alert over the continuous pattern of misuse of social media by cyberstalkers, and was now educating people not to be lured. More than 3,000 parents and teachers participated in the interactive session.
Sridhar Nallamothu, editor, Computer Era Magazine, and faculty of the Police Academy, warned that cellphone usage for a longer period of time was not recommended for children below eight years as it impacted their speech and hearing abilities.
“Several researchers proved use of cellphones at low age creates autism problems. Cellphone usage for a longer duration of time creates loneliness among children and children will be disturbed emotionally, get addicted to games like PUBG and ultimately they lose interest in their career and it also affects children metabolism and physical health,’’ said Mr. Sridhar.
He discussed different cyber crimes against women in social networking sites which lead to blackmailing and suicides, and asked parents to spend quality time with their children. He also advised not to install VPN in phone and also told not to access pirated or pornography notifications on their phones. He advised children to review their age rating before installing games.
Parents, on the other hand, could use parental control apps such as Google family Link, Kids place, which help in preventing their children from online purchases for games and also help in setting the time limit for social media and games. He advised parents to make their children attend online courses to improve their language and other skills.
On Thursday, a webinar would be held on “How to Stay safe online in social media”, by Cyber Crime experts.
Mr. Sunil Kumar along with senior manager, Public Policy, Twitter, Shagufta Kamran, policy programme manager, Facebook, Shruti Moghe and mission cybersafety expert Anindita Mishra will take part in the webinar starting 11 a.m.