Studying At Home Triggers Gadget Addiction, Ambon DPRD Suggests All PTM Regions

Illustration of students studying online during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Antaranews)

AMBON - The online learning policy as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic can actually trigger children to become addicted to gadgets. Ambon City Regional House of Representatives, Maluku, is pushing for the children's learning scheme to return to its original state of applying face-to-face learning (PTM).

Deputy Chairman of the Regional House of Representatives, Rustam Latupono, said that apart from preventing children from missing learning materials that could affect the quality of students, the most important thing is to prevent children from becoming addicted to gadgets.

"Moreover, in this digital era, very high creativity and being able to overcome challenges is also needed, where the use of gadgets cannot be avoided because every activity using gadgets is even more excessive, especially for children", said Rustam.

According to him, proper steps are needed to implement parenting in the digital era. For this reason, all educational units in SMP (junior high school) and SD (primary school) must strive to meet the PTM requirements as specified.

"We need the right steps to apply parenting in the digital era so that children avoid being addicted to gadgets", said Rustam, quoted from Antara.

He said that one of the efforts to prevent children and students from being addicted to gadgets is to carry out limited PTM to form a good attitude and mentality for children. The reason is, in carrying out online or online learning activities, extra strict supervision is needed from parents.

Parents must also make a schedule so that children can be orderly in managing themselves. Such as learning activities, playing, and sleeping as best they can, but it doesn't make them depressed.

"As of now, it is true that the internet can be used by children, but must remain under supervision when children hold gadgets. Because it can have a bad impact on children's mentality", he explained.

For example, he said, gadgets are used only for learning purposes, other than that, children must be limited so that children can focus or can do other routines besides playing with gadgets.

He emphasized, during this COVID-19 pandemic, parents must take part in teaching children many things and try to include learning that is also included in every daily activity. Parents must take care of their children, especially while they are active on the internet to minimize online risks.

"For this reason, we encourage all educational units in Ambon to fulfill the PTM requirements as determined to be able to carry out PTM. All schools must be PTM to prevent children from being addicted to gadgets", he said.