Educating the digital generation without losing sight of learning goals
Jakarta – An increasingly familiar sight in many households is a child sitting motionless with a glowing mobile phone screen in hand. The surrounding space appears quiet, yet the world within the screen is remarkably chaotic.
Within seconds, the child can switch from one video to another, from one story to the next, as though there were no boundaries between entertainment, information, and time itself.
Devices have become part of the daily landscape for today’s generation, present in living rooms, at dining tables, in bedrooms, and even on journeys to school. Many children become acquainted with screens more quickly than with books. Not a few learn to type before learning to write by hand. This transformation has occurred so rapidly that we often only recognise its impact when it begins to manifest in children’s learning lives.
Technology certainly brings many opportunities. Through devices, children can access knowledge from different parts of the world. They can learn new languages, understand scientific concepts through interactive animations, or participate in online classes from various sources previously beyond reach. In many respects, technology has broadened the horizons of learning for young people.
However, behind these opportunities lies a question increasingly posed by parents and educators: does the expanding digital space truly help children learn, or does it instead distance them from deep learning processes? This question has become one of the most important debates in education across various countries.
Yet behind these opportunities exists a reality increasingly felt by parents and teachers. Extended screen time is often not filled with learning activities. Children can spend hours in digital spaces without truly realising how time passes. Without adequate supervision, technology that should serve as a learning tool transforms instead into an extraordinarily powerful source of distraction.
Various Research
The Ministry of Communication and Digital Information reports the latest data showing that 48 per cent of internet users in Indonesia are children under 18 years old, making regulation on this matter extraordinarily urgent.
Furthermore, more than 80 per cent of Indonesian children access the internet daily, with an average duration of seven hours. The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) also notes that 35.57 per cent of early childhood children already have internet access.
This phenomenon is also evident in various other studies. A number of meta-analytical studies show that the use of digital media for non-educational activities, such as social media, online games, or digital entertainment, correlates negatively with students’ academic achievement.