HOW TO SAFELY EDUCATE OUR CHILD TO BECOME CYBERSMART

(English Version)

Along with mobile phone technology advance the smartphone use is growing across all age group. The age range of smartphone user grows widely. There are so many kids cell provided in the market. Currently, cell phone for kids is ubiquitous. This proved by some facts such as in Britain some 70 percent of 11 to 12 year-olds now own a mobile phone, and that figure rises to 90 percent by age 14. According to Nielsen, recent research teenger are adopting smartphone at the fastest rate. At the present it is estimated that more than half of all teens own a smartphone. The use of a smartphone certainly facilitate more internet accsess. It means more easy for the teens to access Internet and they more frequent to get information from internet. Unfortunately the information from internet is not always positif. Our young generation become exposing to both negative and positive information. Negative information make them face serious dangers of internet bad influence.

One of Internet dangers is pornography. Website of liputan 6 quote “There are 200 pornographic scam application published by more than 50 developers.” It means the smartphone user particularly ones who apply Android platform can easily gain the negative content application through application store of Google Play. In this condition the young generation can easily access the negative application by their smartphone behind their parents’ back, certainly this will make negative impact on the young generation morals. The recent advance in internet technology made negative impact on teenager from 13-17 years old. In accordance with FBI investigation on chlid prostitution, Auliani (2013) describes dark side of society which is growing along with Internet sites that provide easy access to people who procuring girls in the hotel, motel, or the similr places.

 

In addition to pornography, online game addiction is likely to be a threat to young generation’s personality development. We can not disregard game addiction because it cause damage mindset and behaviour that possibly ended in psychotic illness if it is not handled very well. Therefore parents are required to supervise and control gadget usage particularly ones that provide internet private accseess. It will be different if the internet accsess is available on the desk computer which its usage can be relative easy to control, parents can directly control what and how their child see and use on internet because the desk computer is not portable.  

Prianggoro (2012) quoted Elly Risman, a psychologist of Yayasan Kita dan Buah Hati (YKBH), “The generation who born after 1995 rely heavily on technology to communicate, play, and sosialize. Parents must impose restriction and regulation on using smartphone for their children. The device that is given should be suitable with the age of the child. The regulation shall contain daily routine so that the technology usage shall remain be restricted. It is also impontant to provide explanation regarding the advantage and disadvantage of using the various digital media, regulation of usage limitation, as well as the unanimous requirements.”.

Therefore the parents need an application that can be a solution to the above problems. To meet that parents requirement, the Android-Based Parental Control Application is created. This application enable parents to supervise and restrict the children in using smartphone and tablet. This application apply Android-Bases Platform due to Android is the first operation system according to the data that provided by Data Corporation (IDC). As a new technology in computer science, this application is very interesting to learn further as it very usefully for parents who is concerned to build best generation.

How this application can protect the young generation from the bad impact of technology advance that related to gadget usage? Android-Based Parental Control Application provide some useful features that are internet application blocker, GPS tracking, time limit, hide icon, remote lock, and parents dashboard. The various features enable parents to block the internet sites or application that are not suitable for child, tracking the child’s location, restrict the time for using gadget, remotely lock the gadget. All security measures done by the parents without the child recognition because this application’s icon do not appear on the child’s smartphone/gadget screen. The parents can manage Parental Control Application that is existed in your kids’ smartphone/gadget by using the Parents Dashboard Features which is available in website. Blocking the unsuitable Internet application is done by using Application List Feature. Searching child’s location is a function of GPS Tracking Feature. The parents are able to know any application that is opened by their child by making use of Aplication History Feature. Last but not least, we would like to mention the Time Limit Feature that enable you to impose time restriction on child in using smartphone/ gadget.

Android-Based Parental Control Application is the latest invention that help the parents to minimize internet bad influence on young generation by controlling smartphone usage. In this way the young generation remain able to safely take advantage of technology advance, avoiding its bad impact. This application designed to help parents keep their child being safe on the internet and enable child be cybersmart and use internet safely. Until now this application do not yet commercially produced and only developed in prototype model. It needs further research to prove that this application can be well implemented. Hopefully someday this application can be improved and available in playstore so that the parents can facilitate the child’s ability to keep catching up on technology advance without worrying the bad impact. This application enable parent to choose internet safety websites as only sites that allowed to be visited by their kids and help them to become cybersmart as well as being safe on the internet.   

Aplikasi Parental Kontrol Berbasis Android, Fachri Riyanto, Irwanto Widyatri, dan Afan Galih Salman