Information is power, as they say. People should not be wary because of the challenges attached to computers. Instead, people should be prepared for challenges and changes that come with it. At this age in time, computers and the internet are realities that come to stay, where the benefits supersede the harms in no small way. And indeed, children of this generation need to be conversant with them. Computers and the internet are indeed helpful to children in this twenty-first century for several reasons.
First of all, computers and the internet make it easy for kids to get connected with other kids around the world. Children get to know a lot about other people and their culture when they get connected, as the world is a global village now. By getting connected, means, having access to information that will help the children to develop the understanding of different culture.
And of course, by getting connected the children might find themselves busy, that will help them not to be lonely when they do not have other children around. With proper parental supervision, they will be able to develop the understanding of respecting the different opinion from different personalities, cultures or creed.
Therefore, these translate to appreciating the human dignity and preserving it. They have chances, such as communicating with their friends even after school; they continue an interesting conversation that they might have started from class. Staying connected will also build a sense of competition in them in this dynamic world we live in.
Again, computers help children to learn tough subjects with little or no support from an adult. Even though sometimes children overstay on the Internet and can get connected with the wrong people, kids nowadays are luckier than their parents regarding having easy access to very vital information regarding their school work and general knowledge. For example, a kid could watch YouTube video on a particular subject as many times he/she so desired. Before the availability of computers, children always had to stick with their teachers, parents and their textbooks, whether they are useful or not.
Check out this article which also tries to compare the challenges and prospects of computers in today’s schools.
Another instance that computers help children is when they do not have things like science facilities in their school, they could simply search on the web and get videos or images on the relevant topic. Indeed, computers and the Internet are complementing what children do not get in school or even at home.
Lastly, computers make it easier for children to obtain up to date information. For instance, in the olden days when there was a discovery/breakthrough in some part of the world, it used to take a very long time before it reached some other parts of the world. On the other hand, today, when there is a discovery, it’s just a matter of publishing it on the Internet; it will instantly spread everywhere in the world. So, the kind of knowledge children get nowadays is current and up to date. As teachers are always researching on the Internet, also parents are doing the same thing before teaching their children.
Again, the Internet makes it easy to do something like homeschooling. Parents can register their children on various educational websites and get a lot of free and current resources for the benefits of the children.
I know some may argue that some children get exposed to things they should not be exposed to while involved with the Internet. They could even get connected to the wrong people or access false information and so many other rather unfortunate things. Well, I will argue that with proper parental control and government regulations those risk will be avoided to a minimum level. I can assure you, if the benefits are measured, they will be far more than the harm. Bad eggs will always be there with or without computers.
Therefore, it is imperative to the parents, software developers and government agencies to come together and find a way to regulate the proliferation of harmful content on the Internet. And stricter measures should be applied to how children use the computers and the Internet. The benefits of computers cannot be simply ignored; computers and the Internet are indeed sources of good in the modern world to the children than they are of evil if properly utilised.
