The world is still suffering from the COVID-19 spread, but most of the countries worldwide have been lifting the lockdown. During the outbreak young children have developed another habit of being all the time on their digital phones, tablets connected to the internet. The house arrest situation of children is due to teens due to continuous school enclosures made children get closer to online risks. Therefore, after COVID -19 it is necessary to teach the children about digital citizenship because the online risks are waiting for them holistically because of excessive use of the internet. So, we can say that children are facing cyber pandemic after COVID-19 outbreak and it is impacting on children's wellbeing no time ever before. More than four months of lockdown and school enclosures have made children obsess with the online world.
What is the cyber pandemic?
The obsession with the digital phones, tablets, internet, and social media platforms among children involved greater risks of their online safety from online predators, inappropriate activities, and obsession with social media is known as a cyber-pandemic.
According to the DQ Institute Stats: During Covid-19 outbreak- Almost 1 billion children worldwide have faced school enclosures
- Online learning was is not enough and it has increased children screen-time
- The child online safety index says that more than 60% of children ages 8-12 have faced online risks of online bullying
Almost two-third of the children all across the globe are facing online risks, Child online Safety index stated that. Moreover, the world's International think tank DQ Institute has launched a real-time child online safety index on Safer Internet Day 2020, after conducting a survey on more than 145,426 children and teens in more than 30 countries over the latest couple of years.DQ Institute stats: The outcomes of Cyber pandemic
- More than 17% of the teens and kids are facing risky content, offline meeting with unknown people and sexual contact
- More than 45% of the children are facing online bullying because addiction developed with cellphones and internet during COVID-19 spread
- Almost 39% of the young teens and adults have faced reputational risks
- More than 29% of the children have started facing risky content on cellphone having internet including violent and sexual
- 13% of the children have developed risk for gamming disorder
- 28% of the teens have faced online threats on social media platforms
- More than 7% of the teens have got social media disorder according to the DQ institute
Why children are facing cyber pandemic?
It is obvious that when everyone has to remain inside their houses and they have no option other than digital devices connected to the internet. So, in a situation like that, there is a greater number of risk involved children may interact with the online predators, risky activities, and develop risky behavior. Online bullying, online gaming addiction, online grooming, and adult content are all interlinked with each other.
It means that whether COVID-19 is now rare in most countries but it has made teens face potential exposure to web risks. However, it does not mean that it is incurable, but lack of knowledge, lack of discipline, and uncontrolled digital use of cellphones and the internet can cause greater risks of the cyber pandemic.
Reasons behind children are face cyber pandemic?
We have seen that there is an extreme spike of uncontrolled screen time among children due to the presence of digital devices and internet connection at home. Therefore, when the COVID -19 outbreaks started government worldwide have announced to close the schools and stay at home to save lives.
There is another outbreak started on web among children all across the globe. Parents have to provide digital phones, tablets, and computers connected to the internet to engage children not to go outside. Resultantly, today we are facing issue after an issue and our children have been exposed to digital nightmares no time ever before. So, there is a dire need to of controlled screen-time activities of children otherwise, a cyber-pandemic can engulf our children's wellbeing.
How to control cyber pandemic among children?
There are several ways for parents that can help you out to control the online pandemic among teen and children worldwide. Let's discuss it in detail!Digital citizenship identity
Parents should aware of the children about digital citizenship and further about their identity in the web world. Parents can teach teens about how to create an ability to build and manage to create health and safe identity online and offline with integrity. They can provide a controlled screen-time environment using parental control software for cellphones.
Screen time management
Parents should guide their wards and teens to manage their screen -time, doing multiple tasks on social media apps, websites, online games, and browsing activities with self -control. On the other side, parents can use screen recording app for Computer devices to perform screen-time management. It helps out parents to see live activities of children on their laptop desktop devices. So, they can prevent all the inappropriate activities of children. It means, screen recording high -tech tools can make parents get rid of the cyber pandemic.
Online Bullying Management
Parents should guide children on how to detect that someone is going to bully them in real -life or on the web, but they should not respond to the online bullying messages or activities. Moreover, teach your child how to deal with the bullies online wisely. However, parents can manage to prevent online bullies using mobile parental monitoring apps on the kid's cellphone to block internet access on the children's phones.
Online security management
While providing children digital cellphones and PCs you need to teach them how to create strong passwords to protect their private data stored on a mobile device connected with web. It will help you out to cope up with the online attacks and other scams. So, the privacy of the children could breach at any point of time because of the cyber pandemic when kids are connected to the internet all the time on their devices.
Privacy management
Today kids need to make sure not to share their anything on the web and especially on social media platforms. However, if your child has shared the privacy then should teach them how they can handle it with discretional private information by customizing their social media profiles. However, parents can use social media messenger monitoring software to know about kid's online privacy management.
Critical thinking
Parents should develop critical thinking among children to differentiate fake information, good and carnal content, and true and false online contacts. This will enable you to protect your children from cyber pandemic to the fullest.
Conclusion:
TheOneSpy is a platform that guides and helps out parents to keep an eye on digital footprints of children and digital empathy with its powerful cellphone and computer monitoring products. No matter how addicted your children are, you can protect them from cyber pandemic to the fullest.
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