Author Name: Carribean Channel, Cuba TV.
This story was originally published on canalcaribe.ict.cu. [1]

COVID-19: children abducted by screens?

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Date: 2021-08

“Under the shadow of COVID-19, the lives of millions of children and young people have been limited to their homes and their screens,” said Henrietta Fore, Executive Director of the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF recently.

During the pandemic, whether for work, entertainment or to communicate with family and friends, many people around the world have exponentially increased the time of using computers or mobile phones.

The worrying thing is that the child population is also under excessive exposure to these types of devices. This alert is not a call to “demonize” digital environments or the artifacts used to access them.

Cell phones, tablets, laptops and the Internet can be today (and even more so in the context of COVID-19) critical tools for children’s access to learning, play, entertainment and social interaction. Therefore, it is not a question of preventing its use, but of promoting it from the balance and the appropriate content.

Digital natives Many adults say that today’s children are more alert, intelligent and restless than those of years ago. Although we are not facing a proven theory, it is logical that certain skills are amazing.

Digital natives at last, we can see children of one or two years intuitively sliding their fingers over the screens and pressing buttons in complete safety. But pride aside, sometimes offering these devices for them to play serves the function of giving the family a momentary peace.

In other words, in the face of bright images that change very quickly, children remain calm. Of course, in some contexts such as that of a single caregiver who also has pending work, this entertainment option could appear as a “necessary evil”.

However, in any case we must reflect on the possibility that our children are “abducted by the screens.” This phrase, although it seems taken from a fictional movie, actually describes the powerful attraction that many children feel for the virtual universe, when they are inserted into it by the excessive use of mobile phones and tablets.

They then begin to put aside human interactions, so necessary for their development. Also appear, disorders such as speech delay, sedentary lifestyle and sleep problems. In any case, in order to talk about the subject fairly, we must also say that in some specific cases, such as that of very hyperactive children or with a marked attention deficit, games and applications have been used designed to help them focus on a specific activity.

However, even in these cases you have to be careful with overexposure.And the pandemic arrived Although the issue of excessive use of screens was already a matter of analysis, with COVID-19 it is once again a topic of debate, even more so when 70% of students worldwide cannot attend school.

At the same time, the family has fewer options for the care of children and social interactions are drastically reduced. In this context, it seems inevitable that children and adolescents spend more time in front of screens.

What to do then? One of the first recommendations is that parents or other relatives regulate the time of exposure to these devices; organize a schedule for this type of activity. Children under two years old should not watch television or play with screens, according to the first guidelines for children under five published in 2019 by the World Health Organization. In addition, the WHO recommends that children between the ages of two and five use these devices at most, one hour a day.

It is also very important to ensure that those minutes are useful with programs or applications that promote learning. In short, it’s about being active in providing quality and varied content. Similarly, it is recommended that adults participate and help form healthy technological habits in children and adolescents.

Of course, the maxim of “leading by example” also holds true here. We cannot educate our children in the reasonable use of these technologies if we too spend too much time with our mobile or tablet.Content and balance According to the UNICEF report “Growing up in a connected world”, a point of special attention should be what girls and boys do when they connect to the Internet, the content they find, as well as their living environment and support networks.

Thus, the scenario of the pandemic accentuates the responsibility to seek balance in the use of digital media in the daily lives of children without affecting their physical activity or the way they communicate.

“For children and young people themselves, preparing for a kinder and more connected post-COVID-19 world involves trying to find the balance between the internet and the real world, promoting safe and positive relationships with the people around them, and relying on access to the help they need, ”explains the UNICEF Executive Director. Digital devices and especially “screens” are a window to communication and knowledge.

It is our part to teach children these potentialities of technologies, without ignoring what is happening in their environment, without losing autonomy and social and physical skills, so that even in a pandemic, they have time to be children.

(C) Cuba TV, Cuban state owned media.
[1] Url: https://www.canalcaribe.icrt.cu/en/covid-19-children-abducted-by-screens/

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