When children take on the role of a murderer in the game GTA (San Andreas) and plan a cold-blooded murder or butcher a person with a knife until all that remains is a pool of blood, they only want to be superheroes. Powerful, strong and attractive. It is a game. If they are also heroes in their parents’ eyes, accepted by their mother and father, and discover other attractive ways of spending their free time together, then they will kill only in the virtual world.
Poradnia Psychologiczno-Pedagogiczna in Bolesławiec organized three-day meetings with specialists who spoke about the dangers of cyberspace. “The aim of the meetings was to show adults that the Internet can be dangerous for children when it replaces the family home and the love of those closest to them,” said Teresa Rudzińska, the counselling centre’s director.
The lecturers, Prof. Józef Bednarek, PhD, DSc, Józef Bednarek and Dr Anna Andrzejewska, stressed the need to train experts in the dangers of cyberspace. “Ultimately, we want to organize more meetings for parents,” Cezariusz Rudyk, director of the Powiat Centre for Education and Staff Training, told us. “We also want to recommend and help teachers undertake studies in this field. We want the powiat counselling centre to have a specialist, among other things, in Internet addiction.”
They called her a Polish sausage
Anna Bednarek began her lecture by describing the story of Kasia, a young Polish woman who developed hikikomori, a condition diagnosed in Japan involving extreme social withdrawal (people affected by it do not leave the house, and later their room, where they barricade themselves; they usually communicate with the outside world only via the Internet).
Kasia moved from Poland to Germany, where her parents found work. The girl was obese, so her German classmates called her a Polish sausage. They made a video about her and published it online. In it, she ate a sausage that came out of her backside. The girl sought friends online. She barricaded herself in her room. She is depressed, does not communicate with her surroundings, and no one can reach her. Her parents are living through a tragedy.
The lecturer also gave other examples of people who found an escape online from a reality that was bad for them. While browsing websites that give instructions on how to commit suicide, she found one that made a very negative impression on her. “The deeper I went into the content posted on that site, the more I, an adult, felt lost and uncertain. Imagine what a child who comes across it must feel.
Anna Andrzejewska also spoke about the false belief that people met online are friends. “A teenage American who committed suicide online was egged on by his ‘Internet family’ and instructed which pills to take and what to drink with them to ensure the result,” the educator said. “None of his online ‘friends’ intended to save him. Only after the boy died did one of them call the police. Nearly 180 people watched the suicide.”
You are 12, I am 30; heaven lies before us
Another way children spend time on the Internet is chatting, meaning online conversations with acquaintances and strangers. On suitable websites, anyone can choose any pseudonym (nickname) and talk to others, knowing only what they themselves write about. Andrzejewska logged on to a chat for “galerianki.” She chose the nickname “Ania at night.” She began receiving sexual propositions from adult men.
Although she wrote in the chat that she was 12, had no sexual experience and suggested that she was afraid of such meetings, the adult men did not stop encouraging contact. Without embarrassment, they wrote that they had wives and children and wanted a no-strings-attached, sponsored encounter. They readily provided their telephone numbers so the girl could contact them. They proposed meeting in their own cars, which they would drive to any location.
Andrzejewska, posing as a teenager, also received a proposition from a teenage boy. The boy wrote that he was 15 and naked, and that she could watch him via webcam and also undress in front of him or send him her pictures. The woman lied that her mother might enter the room and that she could not do such things. The boy suggested a simple solution. “When your mother comes in, minimize me to the taskbar,” he wrote.
The lecturer stressed that parental supervision must be more thorough. “I have a son myself, now an adult,” she said. “When he was a teenager, I often entered his room, and some picture minimized to the taskbar would disappear from his computer screen. Now I wonder what it was. Back then, it did not worry me.”
The specialist advises that children under 12 should not have a computer in their room; it should be used in a shared room. The sooner we introduce this rule, the easier it will be to protect them later. When a child has always had a computer of their own, taking it away once problems begin can prove impossible.
He killed his mother because she took away his PlayStation
An American teenager killed his mother by smashing her head with a hammer while she slept. His mother had taken away his PlayStation. He planned the murder in cold blood. Asked by police what feelings he had for his mother, he replied that he had loved her and now regretted it. Another boy, from Poland, severely kicked and beat his mother after she banned him from using the computer. Asked why he had done it, he replied that it was good fun.
From questionnaires completed by children, Andrzejewska learned that they begin their adventure with computer games at the age of four or five. By the age of ten, they already spend up to five hours a day in front of a computer—seventeen hours on weekends. In some homes, the Internet and games replace all activity and closeness. Of 90 children asked whether their parents talked to them about Internet dangers, only three answered “yes.”
Most often, no one accompanies children while they watch cartoons and films; online, a child is completely abandoned by their parents. Children play games and retreat into a virtual world because, research shows, they do not feel safe in their families, lack alternative activities with their parents, and gaming is fashionable and widely socially accepted.
Girls from the Nazareth Sisters’ school play GTA
Children choose games available on the market without restrictions, featuring brutal violence. During the lecture, one scene from GTA, considered one of the most violent games, was shown. A girl and a boy have sex in a car. After intercourse, the girl gets out. The boy kills her by running her over and, as a farewell, says to her mangled corpse, “Sorry.” Girls from the elite Catholic school run by the Nazareth Sisters play this game passionately. Anna Andrzejewska discovered this to her surprise during her research.
Young people praise violent games because they are attractive, imaginatively designed, have an interesting plot, and feature an exceptional protagonist. Other games, educational ones, are boring. “Technological progress is moving faster than changes in education,” Prof. Bednarek said during the lecture. “The prestige of the media is growing, while the authority of schools and parents is declining. Specialists must be trained and introduced into schools.”
Andrzejewska adds that when buying a game for a child, one should also read the ratings on its cover (introduced in Poland only in 2009). They tell the buyer whether the game contains violence or profanity, refers to drugs, evokes fear or includes scenes of sexual activity.
“Let’s sail the Internet with our children, because these are unknown and dangerous waters,” Anna Andrzejewska said at the end of the lecture. “People commonly talk about surfing the web. But surfing means nimbly jumping from wave to wave, relying only on technical possibilities. Sailing is an adventure, discovery, and surviving storms and squalls together. It means being with your child at every moment, ready to lend a helping hand when needed.
(information: Grażyna Hanaf)