Fighting against “infollution” that contaminates our children’s minds and their thoughts

© infollutionZero

With the overflow of digital information on the Internet, the knowledge ecosystem has dramatically changed in recent years. Digital media not only serves as the principal entertainment source for children, but is increasingly an educational and social tool as well. Despite its potential, however, digital media on the interest is hampered by the sheer size of its contents and practical issues such as filtering inappropriate materials. Together, these challenges leave children exposed to unsafe digital pollutants such as obscene and violent contents, cyber bulling, and technology addiction. We call these digital pollutants, “infollution”.

Infollution is a new word that combines "information" and "pollution" to connote the negative, polluting side effects of the IT revolution. Like pollution in our physical world, infollution in our digital world is an unintentional by-product of the excessive and uncontrolled use of resources. Moreover, it can be viral, spreading instantaneously and uncontrollably. Why? Because we are amazingly connected in the digital world. It contaminates our children’s minds and thoughts very powerfully.

For example, South Korea, a world-leading IT power has been experiencing serious side effects of the internet. Approximately 15% of children and teenagers are addicted to internet/video games and have easy open access to obscene materials and cyber-violence. Some statistics are quite alarming and need further attention:

• 90% of children are first exposed to obscene materials before the age of 12.
• 30% of sexual crime offenders are under 19. And, one fourth of them imitates online porn.
• Around half of all children have played violent online games rated R.

With growth comes challenges, and the leading IT countries have recently become aware of the danger of infollution to children, including rising number of internet game addictions. We believe that it is imperative to adopt lessons from advanced IT countries like Korea and Singapore, and to protect children from the potential dangers that come alongside the benefits of IT advances.

Infollution is a new type of pollution in 21^st century.

For a long time, we have constantly ignored the serious alarms about pollution in the name of economic growth. The inconvenient truth is that we caused environmental crisis in our physical planet. We should not pass another environmental crisis to our future generations.

Considering that the cyberspace is a new reality connecting the globe, it is important for Asia-Pacific region countries to develop a net ethics and digital literacy education programme  in a joint effort to actively protect children from infollution.

As one of the measures to fight infollution in Korea, infollutionZERO introduces, “Green Digital Kids” programme in the Seoul metropolitan area. infollutionZERO (iZ) recently initiated this programme to help children understand the potential harmful effects of digital media, and to teach them practical safety guidelines and cyber ethics with interactive digital educational tools that maximize learning effectiveness and motivational appeal for children.

This programme targets children under 13 and includes an interactive hands-on exhibition, interactive digital educational content and campaigns for families. Ultimately, it aims to foster green digital environmental awareness not only among families with young children but also among the general public.

For example, one of green digital kids program is an interactive hands-on exhibition, “iZ Hero Adventure” for children learning 7 habits to become an “iZ hero” who saves the infolluted digital world. 

7 habits to become an iZ hero!

1.      Understand the harmful effects of infollution.

2.      Promise when, where, how and what contents you and your family will enjoy.

3.      Block infollution with special software and other tools.

4.      Respect the people you meet in the digital world.

5.      Talk to your parents about your digital experience.

6.      GoodPlay outdoor creatively.

7.      Green the digital world

This programme will be further developed into digital content on web/mobile with the collaboration with the Korean government. For more information, please see the contact information for infollutionZERO below.

Concluding, we would like to reemphasize that it is vital to raise awareness of the harmful side of the internet especially among children, for prevention is much less costly than intervention. We must also help build a public consensus to fight against infollution and strive for more effective legislation.

Authors:

• Dong-Joon Cho, Marketing Director at infollutionZERO, Researcher at the Department of Non-profit Leadership Program at University of Pennsylvania.
• Jaywon Lee, Professor of Business, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology Business School.

Contact infollutionZERO:
(Korea) infollutionZERO, @ AhnSei foundation
(A) (100-042) Chung-uh-ram #4, 19-8 bunji, Namsandong 2Ga, Jung-gu, Seoul
(P) +822-3789-5277
(F) +822-6918-4960
(E) contact@infollutionzero.org

(Singapore) infolutionZERO @ Singapore Nanyang Technological University
(A) 49 Nanyang View Singapore, Singapore 639643
(P) +65-9120-3544
(E) park@infollutionzero.org