CHINHOYI- TECHNOLOGY has swallowed the lives of young ones, as they spend most of
their time on mobile phones than anything else.
They have the knowledge of a whole lot of things at their fingertips, so much so that in a matter
of seconds they can goggle up things they desire.
But Gloria Mubari from Rujeko says: ”There is what is called cyber bullying and this is when
children get bullied online about their families, looks and other stuff, which may lead to children
losing confidence in themselves and others committing suicide.
“Children, due to the content they are exposed to, may end up being involved because of peer
pressure. They end up doing things that harm them emotionally, physically and mentally. This
may also include peer pressure on drugs, bad language and others.”
Theodice Ngwenya from Cold Stream believes that young people do not have quality time with
their parents these days because they will be too busy either having lessons online, or busy on
facebook, twitter, Instagram and so on.
As a result, he says, parents leave them thinking that they are busy with school work since they
are allowed to use phones in schools these days.
They then become exposed to wrong ideas, he says, citing an example of a trend in South Africa,
where people are wearing bum shorts and Tee-shirts, which expose body parts.
“They would get attracted to that and would want to experiment that on our own culture, which
is very wrong. The other thing is that these young people are exposed to bad things like
phonography on the internet and when they see such things they want to experiment without
considering the consequences,” says Ngwenya.
Talents Kazingizi from Cherima says that the internet is destroying the young generation a lot
because the content they are being exposed to – like phonography is not age-specific and at the
end of the day they experiment what they watch, which leads to early marriages, as well as other
unintended consequences such as STIs.
”These early marriages lead up to too many divorces because the couples will not yet be mature
enough and do not understand what marriage is about,” he said.
