Francis Ford Coppola once stated in a TIME interview that big tech companies would soon own big studios offering video subscription services.
Suffice to say, the Internet is becoming “Idiot Box 2.0”, replacing televisions and satellite channels. Based on a research by Accenture in 2012, we spend 20 per cent of our time on smartphones doing something productive — what happens to the larger 80 per cent?
I’m concerned about the effects of video subscription services on our young ones because drama series and movies nowadays are different from a decade ago. The serials on popular subscription services are laden with violence and sex.
Imagine all these shows corrupting our children’s minds.
Most children have access to smartphones and they can go to a 24/7 convenient store to buy a pass for video subscription service — no credit card is required.
Call me old-school, but serials and movies today are weird and disgusting.
Sex, alcohol and drugs that were portrayed mildly 20 years ago are taken to the extreme.
Parents need to be aware of their children’s activity on the web. They may not be watching pornography but the serials and movies on the web are getting close to that.
Youths should avoid spending too much time on their smartphones by uninstalling addictive apps and games.
Tech companies are luring us to subscribe to their services and are hiring “psychologists” to make us addicted to their apps.
Parents, teachers and students must realise that we are facing a big dilemma because we need smartphones in almost all of our daily tasks, but at the same time we need to battle the urges and not succumb to these addictive apps and services.
Abdul Quayyum Mohamad Nasri
Changlun, Kedah