Safer Internet Day earlier this week (February 10, 2015) came and passed quietly without as much as a remark in the local media. Yet, if you walk around Kigali these days – or, indeed, in any city in the region and beyond – you will not fail to notice the profusion of smartphones in the hands of the tech savvy teenagers. The sight of smartphone-wielding teens is a good thing, as, at the very least, it is an indication they are in tune with these “ICT” times that have come to define their generation – “Generation Z”, to be precise. My household has a couple of them, aged between thirteen and twenty, and fall right within the age bracket. This makes me a very interested party. Generation Z defines those born after 1995 – and are unaware of a world without internet. They are all over on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and wherever else they browse. “They get all the latest trends from social media and find the morals of their elders out-of-date.” As such, as is increasingly obvious, their fashions are those found worldwide over the web making them, in their likes and dislikes, uniform universal creatures of their time the world over. But in this new environment, they are also suffering trolling and social cruelty, such as has been reported in international media of teen pictures in compromising situations – often sexual – being passed around by their peers on social medial leading to their suicide. Trolling refers to Internet behaviour that is meant to anger or frustrate someone else to provoke a response. While we are yet to hear much of the trolling and cruelty on social media being reported in our local situations, it is the more reason we should guard against it, both for ourselves and our children, such as through observing the Safer Internet Day. The Day, observed every second day of the second week of February, is a global event organised by the organisation Insafe to promote safer and more responsible use of online technologies and mobile phones, especially amongst children and young people. Kenya and Uganda have observed it once or twice in the recent past. But it is time Rwanda and the rest of the East African Community took note, as the Internet takes hold in all social, economic and political spheres. But, perhaps, it should be more to do with our youngsters. Essentially because, even if you are not using it, the Internet shapes you – even as a parent, as long as your children are using the web. You have to keep tabs on their activities in the web in these mind-bogglingly changing technological times in which parents are expected to equip their children with 21st Century skills. I should know, as, I, too, have my issues. For instance, already proficient at playing Internet games, I am yet to discover what my three-year-old’s generation is, or will be called. No matter. Amid the often noisy protestations when either he or I need to use the phone, I am reminded there must be a way to ensure his safety as he graduates to the more “grown-up stuff” of his elder Generation Z siblings. But we have a bigger worry, especially with a recent report by researchers from Boston University in the U.S. who warned that using a tablet or smartphone to divert a child’s attention could be detrimental to “their social-emotional development.” Another US study conducted last year found that just five days of no media use improved 6th graders’ comprehension of nonverbal emotional cues. So, as I have noted, the Internet shapes you. So how do we regulate the potentially harmful smart gadgets at home? We have taken note and, short of consigning the gadgets to the dustbin, are trying hard to do something about it. The writer is commentator on local and regional issues
