Pretoria - Cellphones, the internet and texting were the perfect refuge for young people suffering from social injustice, Public Protector Thuli Madonsela said on Tuesday.
And, to that end, the government had the mandate to step up and fulfil the constitutional promise of saving the youth from destruction.
Madonsela told a 2016 Youth Research conference at Unisa that people tended to gravitate towards certain things because they needed to run away from feelings of loneliness.
“They often seek refuge from the unfairness of life and social injustice, and one of the places they can turn to is the internet.”
Madonsela was delivering the keynote address at the opening session of the conference, which focuses on bullying, substance abuse and cellphone addiction.
The two-day event is hosted by the youth research unit of the Bureau of Market Research within Unisa’s College of Economic Management.
The third in the series, the conference is discussing the results of the ground-breaking research on internet safety among Gauteng pupils.
“The fourth revolution – the digital age – has provided young people with a place to go to when lonely... it’s an age where there are advantages such as the abundance of information,” she said.
The internet was a place to disappear into, but that came with hazards, she said.
Madonsela told the conference that the state had a responsibility to protect the young from such hazards.
Madonsela said every person was a social being and wanted to belong and be thought of as significant.
Young people needed the right guidance and to be taught how to define themselves, and therein lay the power to rise above their situation and become leaders of the future.
Unisa principal and vice-chancellor Professor Mandla Makhanya said a survey had revealed disturbing findings on online sexual grooming and exposure of pupils to pornographic material – a scary state of affairs.
“How can we not be afraid when children in primary and high school have access to knowledge – good and bad – that we did not know at their age?”
The internet was behind changes in attitudes and behaviour, exposing young people to different forms of abuses, including widespread drugs, he said.
Makhanya said research highlighted the psycho-socio challenges faced by children in secondary schools.
The conference will also discuss risk factors and mitigation of online exposure, the impact and effects of exposure to pornography, and regulation thereof.
The nomophobic phenomenon – the fear of being without cellphone connectivity – will also come up for discussion at the youth conference.
An overseas speaker, Brad Huddleston, of Huddleston Ministries in the US, will talk about restoring balance in the digital age.
Pretoria News