Digital Literacy Is Important To Prevent Online Gambling Practices By Students

JAKARTA The spread of online gambling in Indonesia is getting more massive every day. And more concerning, online gambling practices have also begun to infect school-age children.

According to the records of the All-Indonesian Teachers Association (PGSI) of Demak Regency, Central Java, many students at the basic, middle and upper levels were involved in online gambling.

Based on the findings of PGSI, the number of elementary school/mi, Mts/SMP, MA/SMA students in Demak were involved in online gambling practices as many as 40,000 students.

"(Students) who are affected by online games are affiliated with online gambling 30 percent. Meanwhile, those who access online gambling are between 5 percent," said the chairman of the DPD PGSI Demak Regency, Ng.Noor Salim, Monday (23/10/2023).

Based on these calculations, it is estimated that as many as 12,000 students play online games sponsored by online gambling. Meanwhile, around 2,000 students directly access the online gambling.

Online gambling is indeed a big concern for the government in the past few years. The circulation of money in the online gambling business continues to increase every year.

The Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK) has uncovered extraordinary figures related to online gambling. PPATK said the total input from funds aka the accumulation related to online gambling in the 2017-2022 period reached IDR 190,265,249,786,831.

This figure was obtained based on the analysis and analysis of 157 transactions from 887 parties who were online bookkeeping networks during that period.

Noor said online gambling had a bad impact on students. This can be seen from the absence of students who experienced an increase in several schools. In addition, students also seem to lose their enthusiasm for learning due to online game addiction and gambling.

"The number of student absences in several schools goes up, without permission or alpha, due to dependence on games to online gambling," Noor explained.

The fact that online gambling has also penetrated school children has made the National Coordinator of the Education and Teacher Association (P2G) Satriwan Salim. According to him, it is time for the education curriculum in Indonesia to be able to answer problems in the future.

This is a yellow light or an alarm for schools. It's time for our curriculum to be able to answer future problems and challenges," Satriwan told VOI.

"Online gambling and online games are challenges in the world of education," he added.

On the same occasion, Satriwan revealed several causes of online gambling infecting school children.

The first is the low level of digital literacy and financial literacy in Indonesia, including those in the world of education. In fact, these two things are closely related.

As a result of low digital literacy and financial literacy, it not only causes more people to be trapped in online gambling, but also illegal online loans (pinjol). And even more sad, teachers are among the most trapped in illegal loans.

Based on a survey conducted by NoLimit Indonesia in 2021, 42 percent of the people who were caught in illegal loans were teachers. Then followed by victims of termination of employment (PHK) as much as 21 percent and in third place was a housewife of 18 percent.

Therefore, Satriwan emphasized the importance of including digital literacy and financial literacy in the independent curriculum as is currently underway.

This online gambling understanding must be taught and this is included in digital literacy. Children are usually tempted by online gambling because of very massive advertisements, "Satriwan explained.

Not to mention the question that many teachers are trapped in loans. This is because of the low level of financial literacy in us," said Satriawan again.

Regarding digital literacy, Satriwan said there are four pillars that must be understood and implemented. The four pillars of digital literacy include digital skills, digital culture, digital ethics and digital safety.

Digital skills include the ability or ability to utilize digital media in everyday life.Digital culture or digital culture related to national insight in interacting in digital spaces, digital ethics or digital ethics related to maintaining attitudes and adjusting to remain rational, as well as digital safety regarding security in the internet.

Digital safety is one that needs to be understood so that children are not trapped in online gambling, negative content that smells of pornography or violence, for example," he added.

The second reason for the rise of online gambling among students is because of the environment. Those who are in a close environment or used to doing online gambling will be easier to get caught up in.

To prevent the spread of online gambling among students, Satriwan said schools and parents need to work together in limiting the use of social media.

"Because social media can be a means of spreading advertisements, online gambling promos. Schools must be free from content that interferes with children's growth and development, including online gambling and other negative content," he concluded.