OPINION> Commentary
Kids need lessons on uses of cellphones
(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-06-06 07:47

Parenting was never a piece of cake in any age, but probably the greatest source of headache for parents today in Japan is the ubiquitous cellphone. Today, 96 percent of senior high school students and 58 percent of junior high school students have cellphones. Even among primary school children, 31 percent have them.

By enabling youngsters to stay connected with their parents at all times, these gadgets help to keep children safe. For the kids, they are fun toys, too, that let them text to or chat with their pals whenever they want, play Internet games, and enjoy blogging for their own profile and diary purposes. They can even write novels and publish them online.

But terrible dangers lurk beneath all that fun and convenience.

Every year, about 1,000 children become involved in rape and other crimes through dating service sites. Violent and obscene images are only a couple of clicks away. On gakko ura saito, or so-called unofficial school websites where kids can post whatever they want, anyone can fall victim to brutal "verbal mob lynching" by their peers.

It is in the nature of parents to want to believe their own kids could never do wrong or be wronged, but no parent is 100 percent certain.

Amid today's urgent need to address these problems, the government's Meeting on Education Rebuilding has issued a report.

In response to Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's recent comments - "I cannot think of one good reason for (letting youngsters) have a cellphone" and "I would like everyone to discuss whether cellphones are really necessary"-the report recommended that "parents, guardians, schools and all parties concerned should cooperate among themselves, so that elementary school pupils and junior high school students do not have a cellphone unless there is a compelling reason for them to do so."

But since many parents believe in the necessity of cellphones as a safety tool, it is unrealistic to expect everyone to do away with them. Rather, it would make more sense for guardians, schools and cellphone companies to consider, from their respective standpoints, how cellphones should be used by children.

From this year, accessible sites can be limited when a minor newly signs on to a service unless his or her guardian has no objection. Not a few parents lift the access limitation on the grounds that they "trust their children", but no child should be exposed to any obvious risk. We truly hope parents convey their concerns about such risks to their children.

We suggest that parents sit down with their offspring and talk about their "house rules" for cellphone use. For instance, set the hours allowed, so the kids won't be texting to their friends late into the night, remind them never to give away personal information online, and so on.

But there are limits to what individual families can do, and this is where we also suggest that schools should educate their pupils on the dangers of cellphone use. One way to go about this, for instance, may be for each class to set its own rules on sending e-mail messages.

Cellphone companies are busy adorning their products with all sorts of new functions, but we wish they would also expand their lines of plain nuts-and-bolts products for just basic phone calls and locating where the phone holder is.

The Diet is expected to pass legislation to regulate harmful Internet content during the current session. An independent organ is responsible for setting a standard by which to determine harmful content. We hope the cellphone industry will work together with this organ to do everything to protect children from such content.

Japan plans to forge into an IT nation. It won't do to keep exposing our country's youngsters to IT-related risks.

The Asahi Shimbun

(China Daily 06/06/2008 page9)