How to Create a Childfriendly Environment on The Internet? The Double Take column looks at a single topic from an African and Chinese perspective. This month we discuss how to create a safer environment on the Internet for children.

Children are spending more time online now than ever before because of the challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, as online classes have become an alternative to face-to-face classes. Besides the Internet being a useful platform to facilitate the continuation of education programs for the children, the restrictions on movement in most parts of the world have also meant that after the online classes the children are also spending a lot of time online for the purposes of entertainment.

In this situation, it becomes very difficult to effectively monitor what content they are accessing.

In addition, websites offering free entertainment such as movies and music downloads have in many cases become the favored sites for advertisements, some of which are not suitable for children.

A number of studies have acknowledged these challenges in the digital era and identified that media and digital literacy is one of the effective measures to empower both parents and children to effectively use new communication technologies while minimizing the risks associated with such use.

At the level of parents, it will mean that they are better able to assist in creating a childfriendly environment for their children by minimizing the risks of digital media. For most parents, managing their children’s online behavior has meant nothing more than taking away their child’s cellphone or Internet privileges as some form of punishment. While this might work as a short-term measure, it needs to be complimented with deliberate measures to restrict inappropriate adult online content in order to create a childfriendly environment.