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My 11 year-old-son used my phone to exchange nude photos

County_RiftValley
 Photo:Courtesy

It is not just kids aged below 10 years who, as experts have warned, will be negatively affected by having a smart phone for a companion and not necessarily as a gadget of communication.

A random survey carried out by The Nairobian revealed that these phones cause more harm than good:

Exchanging nudes A parent who had bought his preteen kids tablets was shocked when he found that his 11-year old son and 12-year old daughter were taking and sharing nude photos on WhatsApp groups. Elizabeth Wairimu, a relative of the disappointed parent, recalls the father taking them to a see a counsellor.

Sexting for life According to Consumer Insight’s 2015 Holla Report, youths aged 16 and below have already had sex and are hardly offended by sexually oriented phone messages.

Elias Munyasa, an intern at a local media house, says he has unknowingly exchanged sexual messages with a teenager he met on Facebook. But he was was shocked when he saw his sex chat mate leading a choral verse during the school drama festivals and “she admitted that she was a form-two student when I confronted her.”

OMG porn!

Mercy Chebet, a single parent, recalls being shocked when she checked her phone history and realised her son was borrowing it ostensibly to ‘use the calculator’ but “I later realised that he was accessing porn sites...and no wonder his school grades had really dropped.”

Sex predators

According to Catherine Mbau of Arise Counselling Services, applications like Snapchat, Kik, Viber, WhatsApp and TextNow makes it easy for a child to talk to strangers without your knowledge since they bypass phone companies’ short message services (SMS).

These applications allow them to capture an image or video and make it available to a recipient for a specific time. “Kids can receive (or send) sexually inappropriate photos. The truth is that nothing sent over the internet disappears. There are always ways to retrieve and capture those images,” Catherine says.

Cyber bullying

Students from a school in Nakuru were recently sent home over cyber bullying.

“My sister’s daughter was among the students sent home after reporting her classmates to the teacher for bullying. The other three girls had threatened to beat her up in a Facebook post,” Mary Muthoni revealed, adding that her sister was not even aware her daughter had a phone.

Apart from bullying, there is a possibility that some of the fake accounts on Facebook are also run by minors who get online attention to compensate for what they miss from parents.

 Social climbers

Children from middle-class families are learning very fast from their parents who have taught them that being well-off is measured by the type of ride, ‘hood and even the number of gadgets. Maurice Okundi, a teacher at a private school in Kilimani, disclosed that his school is facing such challenges.

“The other day, a student came to school with an iPhone and unfortunately it was stolen. At first, I thought the parents would blame the child, but they came to school furious blaming the administration. Phones are not even allowed in school in the first place.” -

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