By Elizabeth Herman | Posted: November 26, 2019

“In today's education, we are just creating machines of information, not compassionate and resilient human beings. Recognizing the importance of holistic education in the Art of Living, we are running over 800 free schools,” said Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar in his recent address at the Vatican.

Raising and educating children has been a perilous adventure throughout history, but now that the digital age has arrived, new problems confront concerned parents who wish to protect their young ones. Threats like internet based child trafficking and suicide games, as well as addiction to virtual games and sites, can be insidious during impressionable growth years from infancy to young adulthood. 

During a recent journey to Europe, Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, founder of the Art of Living Foundation, visited the Vatican by invitation from the Pope for the ‘Promoting Digital Child Dignity— From Concept to Action’ conference on these very issues. The meeting took place on November 14 and 15. 

Then, on November 17, in Dublin, Irelend, Gurudev briefly commented on the Rome conference, saying, “I attended a fruitful conference on digital impacts on younger children, and child abuse. So the Holy Father was very concerned. Faith leaders have given voice to this cause in order to make an impact on governments around the world to bring stringent legislation on child pornography and child cyber space. I talked about the blue whale, suicide games and the concerns around these. How children’s nervous systems are getting affected.” 

Child trafficking on the internet

The risks of adult exploitation of children have increased since the onset of the digital age. Through encryption, child sex trafficking rings can avoid detection by law enforcement, and sexual abusers have greater access to children via unprotected gaming platforms and social media profiles. 

In 2017 at a previous meeting on the same topic, Pope Francis made the following joint statement with Sheikh Ahmed El-Tayeb, printed on the booklet for the conference: “All those practices that violate the dignity and rights of children must be denounced. It is equally important to be vigilant against the dangers that they are exposed to, particularly in the digital world, and to consider as a crime the trafficking of their innocence and all violations of their youth.”

But informal, peer based abuses can also endanger children on the internet. By sharing intimate photos of themselves with “friends,” children can naively expose themselves to child pornography rings where their photos get shared repeatedly without their own or their parents’ permission. And cyberbullying empowers the aggressiveness that was once only relegated to school grounds.

Digital addictions

Overuse of digital technologies by children and adolescents can impact physical and mental health. Parents need to set limits on the amount of time their children spend online. While moderate use can benefit a child’s mental health, excessive use can be detrimental. Neglecting physical exercise because of involvement with internet based activities can clearly damage both the body and the mind of a young person. And parents must keep in mind that much of the data collected is being used by the system to manipulate children’s spending and attention habits. 

So how should society determine appropriate limits on technology use, when many teens and younger children have their own phones and can independently use them? “While those of us in academia and research are struggling to get the data we need to put together coherent and robust guidelines for parents and policymakers, industry is mining this data,” said Dr. Dimitri A. Christakis, the director of the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at Seattle Children’s Research Institute and professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington. Without better regulation of online companies’ hunger to use data for profit, the information needed to protect children can often get lost in the shuffle. 

Suicide game online

Another toxic trend on the internet has become known as the “blue whale” game. This very serious enterprise entices children to commit acts of self-harm, which gradually increase in severity, and ultimately it coaxes them to voluntarily commit suicide. These suicide “challenges” have spread from Russia to India, Ukraine, and the U.S. Authorities have already linked hundreds of deaths with this self-destructive program, which reportedly originated in online groups.

Some investigators call into question the existence of the game, saying, “the idea of a sinister game, one that slowly roped in vulnerable teens and led them down an increasingly tortured path to suicide, seems to be a simplistic explanation for a complex problem.” Depression, other forms of mental illness, and suicidal symptoms certainly exist even without online help and need to be taken seriously by adults. So if the identification of symbols like a blue whale can help loved ones to pay attention to alarming problems in their children, taking note of these online groups must become one among many strategies for suicide prevention. Chances are, educating children and adults on this topic could save lives.

An empowering message for youth

During Gurudev’s talk at the EU parliament on November 12, just  prior to the conference in Rome, a participant from the audience asked, “What would be your message to youth to approach mediation and peace for the future?

Gurudev answered, “First of all, youth should realize they’re young. Many times, when youths get into conflict, they think they’ve become very old. They forget they have a future, they’re resilient, and they have power and energy to manage everything.” 

“See, conflicts arise when you don’t realize you have power, or rather, you think you do but really don’t believe in it,” he continued, defining challenges to a child’s sense of resilience. “So, it’s the weakness in a person that makes him susceptible to emotional upheavals.” 

“If someone finds inner strength, then they can think, they can hear, with a calm mind. And then they have confidence that things will go their way. But when they lack this sense, and they’re emotionally unstable, then they feel injustice was done to them.” 

“In most conflicts, the victim mentality takes a big toll. People feel they’re wronged. Then they inflict pain on others. So youth should first of all believe that truth will always win. Second, they have the power, and third, they should have patience. People who have patience don’t seem to have power and people with power don’t have patience. If they have both power and patience, they can really make any mediation successful,” Gurudev said.

The message is that when young people gain calmness, confidence, and inner strength, they can achieve amazing things and realize their hopes and dreams. With belief in a positive outcome, power, and patience, their sense of and commitment to truth gains an aura of invincibility, and they become more able to manifest helpful change in their own lives and in the world around them. With empowerment along these lines, the digital age can make youth stronger instead of more vulnerable to harm. 

Elizabeth Herman writes, offers writing support to clients, teaches, and volunteers for a better world. She has a PhD in Rhetoric, Composition and Literature. Find her on Facebook or Twitter.