The Internet has revolutionised the world. It has shrunk to a dot and even in the space less than a dot occupies in this universe of infinite space. The Internet has enlarged the range of all kinds of knowledge and has given new meanings to words such as wisdom, scholarship and information.
The Internet has changed man-to-man relationships and has given new expression to feelings of hate, love and affection. It has come as a benefactor, an explainer and an illustrator of the unseen world that never existed before and has today become a reality. The difference between illusion and reality is not restricted to any philosophical explanation of the tangibility and intangibility of matter that may or may not be there. In fact facts have replaced fiction.
The use of Internet has facilitated business solutions, political decisions and has made it possible to learn from the experiences of others. There is everything that would begin with one of the alphabets from a to z now begin with e and e only.
Users of the Internet form a new group of people and have their own symbols of communications. If this change has reduced the chances of misinformation and misunderstanding between the two persons communicating with each other, it has also increased chances of clashes between them.
Along with the question of use and misuse of the Internet, what has begun to boggle mind of moralists involved in the teaching and training of children, who have inquisitive mind that wants to explore all that remains unexplained or untested by them to find out the truth, as to the extent children should be free to use Internet on their own.
Their argument is that the Internet is all knowledge and it contains information only a touch of key away. The information available through the Internet is for use and not for exploitation. However, the temptation to use the Internet for fun by the school going children is rampant and all measures to control them or to guide them in the right direction have been partly successful.
This is world-wide phenomenon and moralists are feeling defeated at the hands of Internet. In the West the children have become over protective of their privacy and often blackmail their parents of indulging into 'extra-internet' activity if stopped from using it, at will, at their homes.
The bug of privacy has bitten Pakistani youth as well. Those parents who exercise control over their children and permit them supervised use of Internet are not sure what they do when they go out.
The mushroom growth of Internet Cafés function in almost every locality of a city, mostly near educational institutions, and permit young girl and boys to use Internet facility with complete facility. Beyond pornographic material and chatting there are other activities such as making effort to hack accounts, sensitive information pertaining to government offices, financial institutions and family affairs.
The lifestyle is another factor that is to be blamed for this waywardness. Grown up people, mostly parents, are responsible for the damage they have done to their children. They do not have time to interact with them and supervise their routine beginning from going to school and coming back home.
To facilitate them to establish contact with parents, the children have been provided with cell phones and to supplement their classroom studies with computers and Internet facility. This parents have done out of their love for their children but either without knowing its adverse effects or having complete confidence in their children and thinking them as immune to influence of surrounding friends.
The unsupervised and indiscriminate use of the Internet has shattered all confidence parents have reposed in their children. The exceptions apart, most of the parents under distress have tales of misfortunes to tell. Young girls eloped with elder net friends; sons developed relations with women of ill repute and cheats. Many have to tell stories how their children were hooked to drugs through Internet and how teenaged girls brought shame to the family only after experiencing sexual relations with internet friends.
The moralists have no solutions and have no answers to question about the use and misuse of the Internet. What they suggest is controlled and supervised privacy, proper sex education in schools, teaching of religion and the limit of restrictions it places on gaining such knowledge.
Mother has a role to play. She should talk to her children and discuss their issues and tell them all about the intimate relations that man and women maintain.
The exact age for such relations and the exact place and people for such relations is difficult to prescribe but it can be explained gradually and with the advancement of age. But remember, restrictions and unreasonable explanations would not work. This is the age of rationalisation and children understand it better than we do.