The presence of new media and the digital era slipped all the anxiety of the parents. The reason was that the results of ECPAT research in 2017 showed quite a lot of children were exposed to pornography through smartphones. This was certainly unsettling, said Ayu, a lecturer in Communication Science, Coordinator of community service at the Department of Communication Science, FISIP Undip. Therefore, the Department of Communication Science took the initiative to hold community service with the theme of digital literacy.

For Mrs. Yoto, the teacher of Pertiwi Tembalang Kindergarten, it was as if they welcomed the initiative held by the FISIP Undip Communication Science Community Service Team. They were worried about it and wanted to find a solution to the problem. Moreover, the Indonesian Child Protection Commission also recorded tragic data where 97 per cent of high school children had access to pornographic/negative content.

“One of our offers is for parents to build more precise communication with their children. Forbidding them to use gadgets doesn’t seem like an easy answer,” explained Agus Naryoso, a lecturer in the Communication Science Study Program, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Undip.

“Yes, we are not experts here, so when we were sharing with the parents, some brilliant ideas emerged from them,” explained Dr Adi Nugroho, M.Si, who is also one of the Undip community service team. Ibu Juni, for example, said that she required certain “clauses/options” for her children regarding whether or not their children were allowed to use their cell phones. As a result, they could divide their time to recite the Quran in the prayer room, study and do their homework at home and use their cellphones to taste.

Community service with the theme of media literacy for teachers and parents of Pertiwi Tembalang Kindergarten Semarang also presented two other lecturers, namely Dr. Hedi Pudjo Santoso and Dr. Sri Budi Lestari which took place at TK Pertiwi Tembalang. This service aims to prevent children from being exposed to pornographic/negative content as much as possible.

Give another alternative

The lecturers of communication science also offered the school to provide certain ways and strategies for their students so that they paid more attention to non-gadget educational games, for example, or if you had to, try to provide more educational content that was fun for them. There is still a kind of traditional game or playing in the arena with the teachers as the instructors.

Regarding digital literacy, Agus Naryoso offered several alternatives, for example limiting children’s access to content that was only for their age, monitoring children’s behaviour while they were using their gadgets as well as providing education and understanding for them to only access content according to their age.

Ayu added that there were regular mentoring patterns for the generation of children in this digital era because it was not easy to completely prohibit them from using cell phones. “There needs to be proportion in using this smart media with a kind of game in the real world,” she added.

Give cell phones to children according to their needs, said Adi Nugroho added. According to him, this was also a preventive measure because when they were older they would get used to media well. They could be “reckless” and intersect with violations of the ITE Law, for example.

Ninik, S.Pd, the principal of the Pelangi Kindergarten, hoped that Undip would come back to her school with continued service, with the theme of digital literacy on the phenomenon of violence which had recently haunted the educators. The managers of the Kindergarten Foundation and the principal of the Pertiwi Tembalang Kindergarten School Semarang also came during the program.

Source: undip.ac.id