Workshop seeks ways to mitigate negative impact of digital age on Nigerian children

By Ifeizu Joe

Journalists have been urged to seek ways to mitigate the negative impact of new media on Nigerian children, but to encourage them to embrace and make use of it in positive ways.

Various speaker in the day one of the two-day maiden national summit on child rights, by Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka in collaboration with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). The workshop was organized for journalists in Anambra State.

The speakers included the acting Vice Chancellor of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Prof Carol Arinze-Umobi and the Deputy Vice Chancellor of Paul University, Awka, Prof Chinyere Stella Okunna.

Arinze-Umobi in her address to declare the workshop open said children deserve to be protected from the harm that abound on social media, without necessarily keeping them aware from using the digital age to leverage their studies.

She said: “Today’s global concern on child rights sprouted from the aversion of the vulnerabilities to which children were exposed in Europe during the second world.

“The task before this Summit, to my mind, is thus to explore various approaches towards taking sustainable positive actions to mitigate the negative impacts of the digital/information age, while optimizing its benefits for the Nigerian child.”

While presenting a paper on – the role of the Nigerian media in bridging the urban-rural divide for children in the digital age, Prof Okunna insisted that there should be a means of controlling children to take advantage of digital media so that there will not be left behind the global trends, but at the same time, the disadvantages inherent in it should be kept away from children.

She listed some of the advantages to include gaming, which provides relaxation to children, social media which connects them to wider world, information and education among many others.

She said: Social media may be dangerous, but that is where parents come in. You have to try to protect them from using it the wrong ways, and you will agree with me that children most times are even more internet savvy, and most times when you drop your phones, they pick it and begin to do one thing or the other with it.

“It is not for nothing that they are called Genzs, so we must explore the advantages in it, and children should be encouraged to embrace the digital world. We should not be over protective, but enhance their access to digital media and also use it to help their studies.”

She quoted from Chike Uzuegbunam’s work to say that about 2.2 billion children lack internet access in the world today. He called on journalists to use their communication power to educate and campaign right, towards the rights of the children to embrace digital age.