Parents Urged to be Vigilant and Monitor Media Content Their Children are Consuming
Uasin Gishu governor Jonathan Bii Chelilim has called upon parents and leaders to be more vigilant and monitor the media content their children are consuming.
Speaking to the press, Bii singled out social media as the main source of harmful content.
“I want to call upon parents to ensure that they monitor what their children consume since most of them consume bad content which is harmful to their day-to-day living. I call on parents and other stakeholders to closely monitor and guide any child on the dangers of being exposed to harmful media content,” said Bii.
“Many kids are committing suicide because they don’t understand the meaning of life and are prone to meet strangers online from different cultures, negative thoughts and demonic who influence their judgment,” Bii said.
The Uasin Gishu governor noted that social media is addictive and urged the parents to spend more time talking with their kids or taking them to guidance and counseling rather than be glued to their screens because children may be facing challenges in their lives.
He also urged the parents to monitor their children who lock themselves in their room noting that social media has a wide range of content that is negative and positive.
Bii says the new technology has led to a rise in alert of depression cases among many youths within the county who are losing life due to their exposure to social media.
“Yesterday we were at Professor Tarus’ place where his very brilliant lastborn son was reported dead in a very controversial way. Through social media, many youths engage in friendship with their colleagues from unknown identities to whom they are later introduced to western culture which leads to moral decadence,” Chelilim said.
He says many youths especially from the tertiary level of education are at high risk of adopting western culture due to the fact that the majority of institutions are cosmo-polytant in their constituents.
Some of the content that children are being exposed to on the various media platforms constitutes violence and crime, sex, obscenity and nudity, drug and other substance abuse, foul language, radicalization, propaganda for war, hate speech, and incitement.
By Joel Mfutu and Ryan Kipkorir