Which world do you live in?

17 July 2012 saw the launch of the ‘Which world do you live in?' social campaign devoted to the problem of computer and Internet abuse by children and adolescents.

Concentration difficulties, sleepiness, poor school results, neglected duties, abandoned friendships, former hobbies given up and replaced by the Internet - these may be some of the serious symptoms indicating that a child starts losing control over the time it spends surfing the net.

Internet abuse becomes nowadays an exceptionally serious social problem. It affects not only children and adolescents, for whom the Internet is an indispensable part of their everyday lives, social activity and entertainment. As many as 98 per cent of Polish children aged 9-16 use the Internet at least once a week. Most of them browse the web daily, or almost every day.

- The latest EU Kids Online survey conducted among the children of 25 European counties indicates that nearly 20 per cent of Polish teenagers declare that surfing the web prevents them from eating sufficient amounts of food or getting enough sleep. 30 per cent of them feel uncomfortable when deprived of Internet access, and 35 per cent admit that the Internet exerts a negative impact on their relations with family members or friends - says Anna Rywczyńska of NASK.

Internet abuse in children is also of great importance for their emotional development. Psychologists have been pointing, for a number of years now, to the addiction to strong emotions offered by Internet, and, in particular, to the pace at which computer games are played, and to the adrenaline rush that is associated with them.

On 17 July 2012, in an attempt to react to the problem of Internet abuse by children and adolescents, a ‘Which world do you live in?' social campaign was launched in the media. The campaign is conducted by the Polish Safer Internet Program Center (Polskie Centrum Programu Safer Internet - PCPSI), made up by the research institute of the Research and Academic Computer Network (Naukowa i Akademicka Sieć Komputerowa - NASK) and the Nobody's Children Foundation. The campaign has been prepared within the framework of the European Commission's Safer Internet program, in cooperation with the German klicksafe program. The Orange Foundation is the main partner of the campaign.

The campaign is targeted at adults, as well as at children and adolescents. Its main message: ‘Those who live in the virtual world are losing their real lives' is intended to draw attention to the problem of Internet abuse, leading to the detachment of young people from other forms of activity practiced outside the Internet. Media broadcasts and publications aimed at children end with the following question 'Which world do you live in?', while messages targeted for adults conclude with: 'Which world does your child live in?'.

- The campaign stresses the role of parents, consisting mainly in determining, together with the child, and enforcing the rules governing Internet use and related, among others, to the forms of activity the child undertakes and to the time spent while surfing. It is also our intention to stress the role of school in preventing online threats, and the need to discuss Internet abuse during talks devoted to web safety. Messages targeted at young Internet users encourage them to consider whether the virtual world has dominated their lives, and whether it is worth shifting the focus and changing the proportions, so that they may take advantage of joys of life outside the web as well - says Łukasz Wojtasik of the Nobody's Children Foundation.

The ‘Which world do you live in' campaign uses television commercials prepared by the German partner organization klicksafe. Radio and press advertisements have been developed by PCPSI. The campaign's messages are also aimed at promoting the toll-free Helpline.org.pl (www.helpline.org.pl) phone number: 800 100 100, where children, adolescents and their guardians may seek assistance when faced with Internet threats, or if Internet abuse-related symptoms have been identified.

A publication titled ‘Excessive computer and Internet use by children and adolescents' has also been prepared within the framework of the campaign, discussing some practical and theoretical aspects concerning the abuse of the Internet by children and adolescents.

The campaign's materials are available at http://www.saferinternet.pl/w_ktorym_swiecie/o_kampanii.html and http://dzieckowsieci.fdn.pl/nadmierne-korzystanie.

Television commercials prepared for the campaign will be aired by: TVN, TVP1, TVP 2, TVP POLONIA, TVP INFO, TVP KULTURA and iTVP-HD.

More about the campaign on :http://www.saferinternet.pl/w_ktorym_swiecie/o_kampanii.html, http://dzieckowsieci.fdn.pl/nadmierne-korzystanie