Ghanaian parents are spending roughly 24% of their productive hours on social media, according to child internet safety specialists.
Screen time is rapidly expanding among the adult population at the expense of their parental responsibilities, according to a poll of nearly 2,000 homes.
It goes on to say that sleep takes up 24% of the adult population’s time, entertainment takes up 12%, and domestic duties and errands take up 8% and 4% of the adult population’s time, respectively.
Desmond Israel, speaking at a session organized by the non-profit group Child Online Africa, stated that if current patterns continue, the issue might have major consequences for families.
The facilitator pointed out that adults spend 16.7% of their time with their family and 50% of their time working.
“Work encompasses everything else,” says the author, “from school for the young through work for the adults who are actually doing something worthwhile.”
However, a closer examination of the numbers reveals that the actual use of time has changed. You’d notice that you only provide 4% to your family… and social media accounts for a whopping 24%. Work accounts for 24% of the total. As a result, social media is now competing with your valuable work hours,” he explained.
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Meanwhile, the group’s Executive Director, Awo Aidam Amenyah, has asked parents to teach their children how to be responsible internet users.
“You know that when you connect to a device, it gets so exciting, you get to do things easily; it’s all fun. Nobody thinks about any other thing apart from being able to do the work effectively. That has to do with the connectivity but then when it’s time for us to disconnect, it’s hard for us.
“Some of us, during the Covid-19 situation, we had difficulty just staying at home without our devices or without being connected to our devices. All these things that we do have implications for us and even for children that we are dealing with.
“When you sit down and think through what the effect of overuse of a device brings to you, it only bring some fear in you to be mindful whether you should even purchase the device for the child or not.
“Clearly, it has short and long-term effects and these effects will have to be deliberately thought through before we can be able to meaning of them,” she stated.
