A third in a row panel discussion dubbed “Children’s World Is Bigger than the Screen”, organized by the Telekom Srbija company, was held at the Children and Youth Theatre in Kragujevac, while doctor Ranko Rajović, the head of the Department for Neurosciences in Upbringing and Education at the Pedagogical Faculty in Koper, Marijana Mirković, the master speech therapist at the Institute for Psychophysiological Disorders and Speech Pathology “Prof. dr Cvetko Brajović” and Bojana Drljan, the assistant professor at the Faculty for Special Education and Rehabilitation, spoke about the consequences of excessive exposure of children to screens.
The head of the PR Department of Telekom Srbija, Marija Bošković said that the children’s world was bigger than the screen, that it should remain so, and that the aim of the campaign was to provide space where expert opinion can be heard. “Through the project ‘Children’s World Is Bigger than the Screen’, we have joined two of our strategic directions in socially responsible operations, the first is investment in youth and education, and the second is an appeal to our customers to use digital services in a responsible way”, said Bošković.
The debates concerning the impact of new technologies on children have been present since the beginning of their massive use, due to which this topic becomes very important, both for professionals and parents, who often cannot find an adequate way to struggle against all these possible problems and harmful influences of these technologies.
Doctor Ranko Rajović said that both children and parents need help, because children have gone into the virtual world where everything happens in a small phone, a whole spectre of emotions that quickly change. “This creates a problem with other activities, they cannot study for more than 15 continuous minutes. We have to teach, primarily parents, how to use technologies responsibly and how to set boundaries”, said dr Rajović.
Speech therapist Marijana Mirković said that children’s development is most intense over the first five years, which is why parents as the most important teachers should bear in mind that children should develop all their biological potentials as adequately as possible.
“Over the last few years children have come into contact with mobile phones very early, and the time spent on phones is time lost for learning and developing intelligence, speech communication and socio-emotional development. Children spend very little time playing and thus do not even develop fine motoric skills. This is why it is important to point out all the negative consequences of the excessive use of digital devices”, said Mirković.
Associate Professor dr Bojana Drljan drew attention to the fact that parents should first react when they notice that the child first of all has weaker auditory attention, when children no longer react to speech, but to visual stimuli, which drastically affects the delay in understanding, and then the entire speech and language development.
The campaign dubbed “Children’s World Is Bigger than the Screen” was launched by Telekom Srbija, as a regional leader in the sphere of telecommunications and as a company fostering responsibility towards the community. Apart from the three panel discussions held in Belgrade, Novi Sad and Kragujevac, one more panel discussion will be held within the campaign, in Niš, on 15 June.
