Catholic students in East Asia warn against internet addiction
Taichung
(AsiaNews) - The Association of Chinese Catholic University Students (tian zhu
jiao zhuan tong xue hui to) is meeting August 10 to 15 at Providence University, in Taichung, on the west coast of Taiwan, to explore the theme "You
are written
in my love "( Ni bei xie zai wo de ai li).
Each
year the association organizes an event to discuss issues of social importance,
connected with the journey of faith right of every Christian community on the
island. This
time, the central part of the five-day meeting was conducted in the wake of the
discussion held during the meeting of the International
Movement of Catholic Students of East Asia (IMCS) (东亚 文化交流 座谈会), to which the association belongs.
A
few weeks ago, 23 to 29 July, the IMCS gathered together more than thirty
students in Taipei from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, Japan and Korea. This
year the movement particularly focused its campaign on the issue of internet
addiction ("Mo Wang cheng yin"). As
disciples of Christ, if the use of the Internet occupies a disproportionate
time in the day, one can not live daily life with a Christian spirit.
The
students emphasized the importance of sharing time with the family, instead of constantly
sitting in front of the computer or continuously using the phone like "a
clan bowed heads" (Di
tou zu, 低头 族) isolated from the
world.
For
this reason, they want to encourage young believers to reach out in simpler and
more human ways, to use the internet less, to encourage face to face contact. The
importance of sharing the wealth of authentic relationships from a reflection
on the Word of God
On
the Internet it is very easy to make new friends - said a Japanese student -
unfortunately the relationships are not as authentic, because
it is also possible to discover and disclose the secrets of almost every
person, to commit fraud, spread gossip ...
One
student from Hong Kong stated that the web "is essentially anonymous, and has
no special ethical restrictions, by contrast, it creates a longing and a desire
for real relationships in young people outside the purely virtual world."
Professor
Wu, who teaches ethics and is the author of a study on the effects of
technological development in the lives of young people, stresses that Internet
addiction in the East Asian region is a serious problem among young students:
"Some students surf the
network for fifteen hours every day, time for study and rest are overturned,
some use the internet until two or three in the morning with the resulting severe
damage to vision, and because of lack of sleep they often grow impatient and
violent, living in a false world that has very
few references to reality. "
For
another Korean student, it is even easier to use the phone to find data and
play on the internet, too often leading young people to isolate themselves from
friends: "If before schools were full of noise and laughter, now there is
only silence with students playing on
the Internet and becoming a "clan of bowed heads." In each family every
member has their own mobile phone: they live under the same roof but do not
share the same life. "
A
Japanese student nevertheless points out the positive side of the internet
confirmed by the experience of the tsunami in Japan last year, when, in the
midst of disaster, the web helped large number of victims to contact the surviving
family members .
Given
the fruits brought by the testimonies of young people of the IMCS, university
chaplain Fr. Feng (冯), who is among the organizers of the meeting of the Chinese Catholic
students, emphasized that all this requires a serious debate on the effect of
technological development in the life of young
people today.
20/05/2016 09:30
20/07/2016 14:13