What are Your Kids Watching?

The media and internet have exposed us to a host of different kinds of content. Content that ranges from news to entertainment, from documentaries to dramas. While of course what content should be made available or not is a debate that rests in more of the collective conscious of society and cultural norms. Yet, one thing that a general consensus can be reached upon is what content is suitable for our children or not.

Whether content that personifies drug use is wrong or not, or should be shown or not for an adult is open for debate. Some would argue that an adult is sensible to understand that the content is fiction or perhaps not real, and others would argue that it is still influencing. What however, we will find little argument on is the fact that a six year old should not be watching such content and being so desensitised to its subject matter, specially at such an impressionable age.

In Pakistan, a child can more or less go into any CD/DVD shop and purchase any movie or game he or she wants. There is no real check or legal enforcement when it comes to what he should be able to buy or not buy. Then the usage of that content too is not supervised and that makes it worse. This is because of a “digital divide” between most parents and children, thus a lack of understanding on part of the parents makes this a particularly complicated problem in Pakistan. Children can use computers and do them as they see fit, whereas parents are unaware of the risks associated with unsupervised computer use let alone knowledgeable about using the parental control features built into every computer to protect children. Similarly with movies there is less monitoring.

Although the problem is less severe with television as most households are one television households, and the televisions are generally placed in very communal areas so monitoring to some extent is always present. Yet, a problem even when it comes to television content is that classification of what content is bad for our children. Generally the perception exists that only romantic, sensual or pornographic or horror is unsuitable for children’s viewing. Action content, drama and even thrillers don’t get faux pas when it comes to being suitable for children and young teens. Even though studies show that these clearly have negative impacts on young children.

The developed world has taken very good steps towards solving this problem. They are called parental guideline ratings. You don’t need to have watched everything before you let your children watch them. Parental guideline ratings are available for movies, games and TV shows. They classify movies, games and TV shows as suitable for children of a specific age group and vary from country to country based on social and cultural norms.

Most available movies in the market have an age rating on them which parents can just have a look at, and make certain that the content is suitable. The system when it comes to TV was first proposed on December 19, 1996 by the US Congress, the television industry and the US’ Federal Communications Commission. We really need a system such as that implemented here through the Parliament, which will help educate parents and protect our children against content, which can be harmful to them. It should be for local and international movies, games and TV shows. Again, it is important to stress that the system is completely voluntary in the sense it should not be used as a tool to subject content to censorship, as the possibility for abuse is there. It should be used as a guideline to tell parents what kind of content they should approve for their children or not.

Such a ratings system coupled with a mass media campaign, can help parents even with little education make informed choices. Movies and games should have the age guideline printed largely on them, and TV shows should carry the guideline as a transparent logo, which appears before and after every break, and intermittently during the program as well, more or less like a television channel logo.

Solving this problem for computers can get more complicated owing to the lack of computer literacy in parents and the difference in skill level of parents and children. One possible solution for extremely obscene content could be blocking such websites, as the PTA has recently ordered ISPs (Internet Service Providers) to do.

However, that always leaves room for abuse and facilitates attempts to stifle free speech. Maybe ISPs could offer a simple child friendly browsing mode, which parents could easily switch on by either calling a number or pressing a button. Seems farfetched to some degree, but technically speaking not impossible or even that difficult to implement. The solution has to be something which involves a minimal level of involvement from parents as they are the ones who least understand about computers.

Yet, maybe a good starting point can be educating them about the type of problems and content that is out there and how it can harm their children. After establishing the gravity of the situation only can there ever be enough demand for this to force a solution to be implemented. But, it is not like that a solution doesn’t exist.

So, have you ever really wondered what your kids are watching? Have you ever wondered what content they are accessing over the internet and normal media? How it is effecting them and their development? If not then now is really a good time to start thinking.

Ali Moeen Nawazish

Youth Ambassador of GEO & JUNG Group