The Good & Bad Sides Of Internet Surfing

The magic of technology is exhilarating. Sometimes I wonder how years back we were able to manage our lives without the use of the Internet. The same goes for mobile phones.

With access to the Internet these days, communicating and getting a reply or feedback is only a matter of minutes.

Difficult assignments are completed in no time. School homework is made easy. Writing is fun with checks on grammar and spellings left to a master hand to complete.

Minute by minute news updates as events unfold and wherever they happen are just a button click away.

That invincible genius has been the 'student's companion' in our daily search for knowledge so much so that we sometimes walk to our physicians pretending we know what our ailments are because of what we have read on the Internet.

The Internet, however, can be aptly described as a good yet bad servant because of the negative and indecent information and pictures one can gather from the many sites so created.

It is always disquieting for me when I see children surfing the Internet. My discomfort stems from the fact that these children would chance upon sites that ordinarily at home or at school they would not have access to.

 I mean, the pornographic sites that have discoloured the Internet world and which sometimes pop up indiscriminately and unsolicited.

For this long vacation, I have been thinking about our schoolchildren and the limited alternatives that are available for them to while away their time with parents busy at work or chasing money elsewhere.

But no, what one sees early mornings does not suggest a vacation for most schoolchildren. With the August 'winter' season where getting up in the morning is sometimes a bit of a drag, one sees children being dropped off at school as early as 6 a.m. for what I gather are extra classes.

I have been wondering whether parents are sending their children off for these extra classes because they want to keep them away from mischief while they are busy working for money or the schools are insistent that the children go for the classes.

Whoever is pushing that button, please let it be known that children deserve some rest just the same as working adults earn paid leave to stay away from work and rest their bodies and minds.

Nonetheless, I see some children get fortunate enough and are 'earning' some school vacation spending some time at their local Internet cafés as my visit to a few confirmed.

The Internet café is an asset. It is helping a lot of children and indeed adults who may not have the means to own a personal computer and an Internet connection to gain access and, more important, learn the use of a computer.

That is perfect but only for as long as the opportunity is being put to good use. I have visited some Internet cafés lately to sample what goes on there. My mission was just to fulfil a curious desire – to witness what the children who stop by in particular are up to behind the PC.

At one Internet café, I was astounded by what I saw. Children as young as ten were busily scrolling down site upon site and some playing all kinds of games.

Pornographic websites are common on the Internet and one wonders whether it would not have served a useful purpose for Internet café owners to be monitoring what children in a certain age group do when they pay to use their Internet connections.

The stories which made huge headlines in the media a few years back of young Ghanaian women posting their nude pictures on the Net ostensibly for partners came to mind here.

I remembered how Ghanaians condemned the pictures and the pressure that was put on the authorities to bring those behind the acts to book as they were tarnishing the image of Ghana.

What our children are busy doing behind the computer and on the Net these days should be even more worrying to the authorities concerned and Ghanaians as a whole.

There is every reason to believe why elsewhere in some countries, films considered not good enough for children are embargoed. Similarly in certain cultures, children considered to be below age are not allowed to purchase alcohol from shops that are designated to sell alcoholic beverages. Indeed, such shops are liable if they sell to that group of children.

 All these laws are put in place for a reason – to preserve the sanctity of our future generation.

Mind you, in Ghana, anything goes but that is another social discussion altogether.

Unfortunately, there are no laws anywhere that regulate profane Internet sites. There are hundreds of websites hosting thousands of sexually explicit pages so the temptation is thrown out there for both the morally weak and the strong to face it.

Now I understand why some parents will not leave their children at home by themselves and would rather they go for extra classes even during a vacation season.

When we were growing up, pornography was unheard of. I am sure the few who got exposed to it were sneaking it into their bedrooms.

It was something unheard of and it was not to be seen in public. Novelty and the search for information have today brought pornography smack to the open - on our streets and in our offices.

It has become available and accessible 24 hours of the day for whoever cares to know.

The most shocking and unbelievable fact, however, is that some responsible adults have become 'addicted' to pornography as well and are openly distributing such obscenity to others with no shame or regret. It makes you wonder who is watching over the watchman.

A friend was horrified to find she was a recipient of a nauseating pornographic material circulated by a boss, a father and a role model, to all the female employees of the firm.

For whatever reason, it is difficult to tell but it certainly makes one wonder why a responsible adult would do that and what kind of morals or caution such an adult would be passing on or giving the youth who are looking up to him.

Indiscipline is really not just throwing a piece of paper on the street expecting someone to tidy up.

I know for sure that some companies have as part of their workplace ethics, policies on the wrongful usage of Internet facilities.

Indeed, to minimise misuse, Internet connection is limited depending on what one's job requirements are.

 For such institutions, employees who misuse the Net including surfing or passing around pornographic materials during working time can face dismissal and the warning is made clear to all employees who have access to the Internet.

There are also some establishments where such work ethics do not exist. Everybody who has access to a PC and is connected to the Internet therefore has a free-for-all time and resources to surf all manner of sites and can even dare to circulate pornographic materials via e-mail with not the slightest guilt.

If you ask me, really, one of the indicators and determinants for entering the Ghana Club 100 league or PriceWaterhouseCoopers, one of Ghana's most respected companies, should include having in place credible policies on workplace ethics.

Being socially responsible, for example, is not just charity work as we are generally made to believe. It includes responsible behaviours internally and externally with all stakeholders in mind.

Role models must be seen to be wholly 'pure'. Those who are entrusted with the good governance of their institutions should not be allowed to ridicule the system but made to walk the talk.

It is indeed time to initiate some campaigns against the wrong use of the Internet starting from our schools, churches, Internet cafés and workplaces.

We will need our schools and Internet café operators to continue to monitor children's use of the Net while employers make it their business to track productive use of the Internet at their workplaces.

Pornography can be tempting and addictive if left unchecked. At least, that is the testimony of a young man whose story I read in a publication left at my gate by one of Jehovah's Witnesses.

Like the horrible encounters of drug addicts, this young man said he was exposed to pornography at a very young age and it was really a struggle for him to break free from it.

In his own words, he had come off tuning in to pornographic sites for years now, but those images are indelibly burned into his memory.

'The thoughts always seem to be lurking in the back of your mind, and your conscience never seems truly clean', he admitted.

Pornography can be damaging. It is perverse. Parents, teachers, employers and indeed all of us have moral duties to check some of such promiscuous 'addictions' in society.

Making the news last week were the poor results of this year's Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).

One of the reasons for the poor performance has been attributed to too much time spent watching pornographic films.

The blame should be on us adults who have watched unconcerned and allowed our children to have access to pornographic and other immoral materials instead of helping to redirect their spare energies to acquiring knowledge or in sports.

We are concerned about narcotic drugs and the effects they have on generations today and the future.

We all seem to have glossed over the fact that indulgence in narcotics and other promiscuous lifestyles or habits are bedmates when it comes to the damage they can cause particularly to those engaged in them and the rub-on effects on innocent ones.

We all have the bolts and nuts to fix it and it should be our collective resolve to do so.

With Vicky Wireko