What do children do online? Over 5.5 hours a day. Gawkowski: I warn parents

Addiction to the Internet, smartphones and social media is becoming one of the diseases of civilization before our eyes. This raises the question of whether the state and government institutions should take any action to combat this phenomenon. “Yes,” says the Minister of Digital Affairs, Krzysztof Gawkowski, when asked about this issue on Radio Zet.

Gawkowski emphasizes that he is the father of three children aged 3, 8 and 14 and adds:

I see that if we do nothing about access to devices, applications, the Internet, and contact options, children will use the equipment more and more and become addicted.

– explains Gawkowski. The head of the ministry also cited data from the “Teenagers 3.0” report published by NASK. They show that the youngest spend an average of 5 hours and 36 minutes on the Internet a day.

– That’s 40 hours a week. This is as much as we work – he notes.

I warn all parents – if you look at your children sitting in front of tablets or computers, consider whether they will then become depressed, emotional, lead to worse academic results, and close themselves off from the world. I warn and warn

– adds Gawkowski in a conversation with Bogdan Rymanowski.

“We are declaring 2024 the year of digital hygiene”

prepared by the National Educational Network. It is a compendium of knowledge for teachers and students, which provides information on digital hygiene, as well as addiction to digital media and many threats to mental and physical health resulting from excessive use of the Internet and new technologies.

Almost every third teenager shows high rates of problematic Internet use. It is worth emphasizing, however, that young people increasingly notice that excessive use of devices has an adverse impact on their health and self-esteem.

– said Anna Borkowska, NASK expert in digital education, co-author of the “Digital Hygiene” course.

For adults to help them, they need to review their own online habits.

– she added.

Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski, present at the conference, announced that 2024 will be the “year of digital hygiene”. The Ministry of Digital Affairs wants to pay special attention to the problem of addiction to the Internet, smartphones and social media.

– Digital hygiene is a key element of our functioning on the Internet today. The ability to establish the right proportions, i.e. those that will allow you to invest the same amount of time and attention in the online and offline world, is becoming an essential digital competence – said Gawkowski

What are our children doing online? The data is merciless

the opinion research team operating at NASK shows how young people function online. To say that the Internet has become a second home for children is an understatement.

NASK report Average internet usage time on weekdays

Research carried out between October and November 2022 shows that teenagers use the Internet for an average of 5 hours and 36 minutes on weekdays. On weekends it is as much as 6 hours and 16 minutes. This time is increasing every year; in the previous edition of the study, which is carried out every two years, the average time of being online was 4 hours 50 minutes a day. In the latest study, parents of surveyed teenagers report the time almost four times shorter, declaring that they spend 1.5 hours online.

Worse still, the age at which the average teenager got their first phone with Internet access is also decreasing. Currently, it is on average 8 years and 5 months. As the authors of the report note, the minimum age for using most social networking sites is 13 years.

Unfortunately, many children provide false information to log in to popular social media. The content provided on these platforms by influencers is often not adapted to the knowledge and emotional development of young people. Nevertheless, these influencers become the idols of children who uncritically accept their words and messages

– we read in the report.

Teenagers vs. Parents NASK

Almost 54 percent teenagers declare that their parents do not set any rules for using the Internet with them, and at the same time almost 60 percent parents claim to establish such rules. This high discrepancy in data may indicate low parents’ awareness of what their children do on the Internet.