On July 4, Bethany High School - a leading CISCE affiliated school in Bangalore - conducted a ‘Digital Misuse’ session for high school parents, as part of its ongoing efforts to prevent addiction to electronic gadgets among its students and youth. The theme of the interactive session was, ‘Are we losing our children?’ and it highlighted the virtual world the students live in, the challenges of the virtual space (cyber bullying, addiction, lack of social skills) and other problems they face due to gadget addiction.

Speaking at the session, Dr Akash Ryall, director of Bethany High said, “Out of love and concern for our students, we took the initiative to create awareness on the impact, problems and providing solutions for high internet and social media usage among our students.  We are very happy with the encouraging response we have received from the parents and our students in this regard. We interacted with the parents and in the session, encouraged them to be role models to their children in terms of digital use, teach them responsibility on the net and how to be alert and look out for signs of digital addiction.” He also advised on the usage of phone at the start of the day with the quote, “You win the first hour of the day, you win the day.”

Through this session, Bethany High reiterated the school policy of restricted screen and gadget usage at school. The three basic rules of the policy include no usage of phones and gadgets at all/usage only on weekends/only one hour a day. With an agreement of their children, parents were asked to make a choice of any of these rules and adhere to the same. The session concluded with the school encouraging parents and students to do a digital detox once a month and the school revealing plans to implement Digital Detox Day (D Day) on the first Monday of every month. The school, parents and students also took a pledge to abide by the school policy on safe digital use.