I’d rather be cautious than sorry!

The Net offers the good, the bad, and the ugly but children are too young to know the difference so it is up to their parents to guide them.

HOW young is too young to have a social media account? That was the question posed by this newspaper last week.

Apparently, access is restricted for kids below 13. But that does not deter them from having their own account, thanks largely to their parents.

A study by CyberSecurity Malaysia (CSM) demonstrates the fact that almost half of the pupils aged seven to nine have social media accounts. For those between 10 and 12, the number is 67%.

Should we be alarmed by that? Should it be a wake-up call for parents, teachers, child behaviourists, paediatricians and psychologists?

Or is the technology simply so prevalent that there is nothing we can do about it? Parents of today must accept the fact that children are living in a totally different world.

They can’t stop the onslaught of technology. Parents can’t stop children from playing games on modern apparatus, just as they can’t deprive them of engaging online. At worst, grin and bear it.

We are witnessing what technology is doing to young children, even babies, today. My granddaughter is hardly a year and three months, and the only thing that will keep her focused is to play her original sound tracks (OST) from the movie Moana or Frozen, or to let her watch nursery rhymes and cartoons on an iPad or smartphone.

She is embracing technology at that tender age. Like it or not, she is going to be part of a ferociously networked generation.

The new generation of kids have gadgets in their hands. They pay scant attention to anything else.

We can’t keep technology away from them, some would argue. Others would say we are depriving them of a real childhood.

But kids are creating a social world, albeit digitally, and in doing so giving birth to a cyber-community of their own.

They are learning their own forms of social skills. Even games are social events now. And children’s obsession with the digital world is hardly beginning.

There are many advantages of these modern wonders. For one, it provides new tools for parenting.

It opens the world to unlimited knowledge and information. The world is now at the fingertips, literally.

Learning is easier, faster and more fun. Technology makes children, perhaps, even smarter. They are learning faster than people of our generation.

There is also a downside to exposing kids too early to the cyber world. Children between eight and 18 are said to be devoting at least seven hours online in a day, in one study in the United States.

A study in Malaysia shows that about 65% of those aged between 10 and 12 spend one to two hours a day on social media. The behavioural pattern of children is changing dramatically.

As reported in this newspaper, there was even a case of a nine-year-old girl who is having suicidal thoughts. Social media addiction can be dangerous.

And Internet users are easily swayed by what they read and see. Questions are asked later. Truth can be elusive. Lies are accepted as truth.

Technology has its perils. In the case of social media, the real impact has yet to be seen.

SMS is a quarter of a century old, but WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram are still in their infancy.

The future promises something that none of us can predict. The Internet is affecting the young and the old.

You can’t blame the kids if their grandparents are spending hours on end WhatsApping. Or when families supposedly having dinner end up with every member engaging in their own private conversations online or playing games.

What kind of children are we creating as the result of the Internet? One thing is for sure, being informed is not enough.

Information, too, can be a tool of mass destruction if it is meant for abuse and manipulation. And Internet users are easily swayed by what they read and see.

Questions are asked later. Truth can be elusive. Lies are accepted as truth. The demarcation between fake news or otherwise is dubious.

Not all information is beneficial, anyway. Humanity is inundated by simply too much information.

Discipline is not a requirement in handling the digital world. It is a cowboy realm out there – no one is in control.

Censoring the Net is a futile effort. Parental guidance is required, viewers’ discretion demanded.

But on their own, and without guidance and no proper surveillance, they can have access to almost everything.

Thus the danger of the Net. Imagine what the Net has to offer – the good, the bad and the ugly. It can be a trap for children. They do not have the maturity to differentiate or to make the right decision.

They are simply vulnerable. It is a space that people can take advantage of – paedophiles, for example.

Don’t get me wrong. I am a believer in social media.

But you can probably understand my nervousness about kids being exposed too young.

Perhaps I am a dinosaur in today’s world of information technology. But I’d rather be cautious than sorry!