Alert Cyber Bullying, 70 Percent Of Parents Don't Regulate The Use Of Devices In Children

Photo: Special

JAKARTA - The most vulnerable group to bullying in cyberspace is children. In 2018, UNICEF revealed data that every day there are 175 thousand children who access the internet for the first time. No doubt, the internet opens wide and unlimited access to knowledge, but it is undeniable that the risk of children accessing the internet is also high, such as bullying.

In 2024, the World Health Organization revealed, 1 in 6 children experienced bullying in the world. Meanwhile, UNICEF noted that a third of young people in 32 countries reported experiencing bullying in cyberspace or cyberbullying.

Even though it happens in cyberspace, the impact of bullying is real, even to the point of hurting the child's psyche, such as being reluctant to go to school. Even 1 in 10 teenagers have been involved in physical fights due to bullying in cyberspace.

Cyber Bullying is one of the risks to be avoided, but can be prevented by the active role of qualified parents and digital literacy. Although the effect is real, there are still many people who are not fully aware of child bullying in the digital world.

What is the strategy of controlling digital activities in children so that parents can supervise their children? Therefore, the Ministry of Communications and Informatics held a Digital Literacy Obral, on Friday, May 17, 2024, which raised the topic "Cyber Bullying, Behind The Screen."

Cyber bullying is not only in the form of negative comments. Without us realizing it, disseminating content that embarrasss and suppresses others on social networks is also a form of bullying. Therefore, parents have an important role in conveying to children what the context of bullying is in cyberspace.

Community practitioner, Tata Yunita said that adults must be sensitive to changes in behavior towards children, such as feeling anxious, not having a passion for going to school, and even experiencing a drastic decline in achievement. Not only that, signs of bullying in children must also be seen from the glasses of children as perpetrators of bullying who often escape the awareness.

"For example, maybe children become more aggressive, easily hit, and say rude things can become a tendency for children to become cyberbullying perpetrators," Tata said.

Not only that, Asdep for Child Special Protection from KPPPA Violence, Ciput Eka Purwianti said that bullying is often done with the aim of making people miserable, embarrassing, and deliberately wanting to harm others, and this behavior is repeated.

Therefore, before giving gadgets to children, parents provide knowledge or mitigation by providing risk information on various possibilities that occur in cyberspace, that not all internet users are family members who can behave well. So, if you find something uncomfortable on the internet, your child is encouraged to immediately convey it to parents.

The main activity of children while surfing online is chatting and accessing entertainment content such as watching videos. Based on a study by the Ministry of PPA in 3 Provinces, 70 percent of children do not get limitations from their parents.

"Even if there are restrictions or regulations, only focus on the duration of the use of gadgets. So the length of time that children use in accessing the internet, both for studying and watching," said Eka.

Eka also underlined the impact of bullying on children with disabilities, who now have the need to avoid gadgets, because they are one of the supports for teaching and learning activities. Not only bullying makes children have an uncomfortable experience when surfing in cyberspace, sexually charged content also makes children afraid when in cyberspace.

The results of the Ministry of PPA and Child Fund International Survey in 2023 conducted on 1,600 teenagers aged 13 to 24 years in DKI Jakarta, Central Java, Lampung, and East Nusa Tenggara revealed that 49.1 percent of teenagers claimed to be perpetrators of bullying and 51 percent were victims of bullying.

Child and Youth Clinical Psychologist Ike R. Sugianto conveyed that preventive measures were taken by understanding the applications that children use in their devices, including what games they use. Parents can also play an active role by participating in learning the games and social media applications used by children.

However, if there are psychological changes in children either because the child is a victim or a perpetrator, the step parents have to take is to refrain from getting angry and reacting excessively, such as getting angry. This prevents children from being afraid to tell stories and what is more important is introspection.

"Maybe we also like to bully our children with words at home," said Ike.

Law in the real world applies in cyberspace. So there need to be consequences that parents do when giving gadgets to their children.