DIMAPUR — The White Owl-Fireside Chat Series-2 was held on the topic ‘Risks that unaccustomed technology possesses for children’ at The White Owl, Zone Niathu by the Park, Chümoukedima, on Saturday.
It featured two resource persons: Levino Yhoshü, a researcher, counsellor, and Dean of R&D at Alder College, and Lovitoli Awomi, a counselling psychologist and founder of Lapiye Centre for Mental Well-Being.
During the conversation, Awomi cited research conducted on the Gen Z generation, which had revealed that ‘most of the kids were not active in anti-social behaviours, not into substance abuse, not into other sexual activities, but had a high rate of depression and anxiety.’
She opined that the root cause could be internet addiction and advised parents, children, and teachers to be very careful in front of their children.
While discussing self-identity during adolescence, Yhoshü mentioned that during this stage of growth, social media offers a platform where young people ‘can be anything and can create an identity that might not be true at all, but they are free to choose who they want to be.’
She stated that society gives them the freedom to choose their values and choose who they want to be, while social media gives them a platform where they are free to be whoever they want to be. According to her, parents should be wary of their children being misled by ideologies that are not good and harmful.
During the conversation, the resource persons also discussed the positive and negative outcomes of internet usage. They recommended a digital detox in order to have balanced mental health.
They also share about the importance of imparting sex education to the adolescent. ‘However, many parents are not comfortable talking about sex education with their own children,’ they suggested.
During the interactive session, they were asked to recommend the healthy period of internet usage in terms of duration. To this, they suggested that three to six hours of usage is ‘alarming’ and anything above six hours is ‘full-on addiction.’