The impact of the information revolution on raising the children of housing institutions in Romania

Abstract

We live in a time of speed, when everything is rapidly changing around us. Not long ago, mobile devices were fiction, and we would only see them in movies, while here we are now, living in a period of voice and video calls through a ‘mobile phone’ device. This device represents a real technical revolution, especially through the modern applications that open up – for us and our children – areas that were difficult to access earlier, such as science, sports and other, more negative media, like pornography sites. We have been able to easily segment and categorize search engines, but how could we classify social networking sites and apps? It is difficult to say whether they are bad or good, the reason for this being that the problem is not in its programming but in its users. Children are in danger because of the Information Revolution we are experiencing, especially two categories of them – the first category includes children of families where parents work for a long time, both or one of them, or those missing from home for a significant period of time. In this category, parents may sometimes avoid mistakes by addressing the danger to their children and thus protecting them, while the second category includes orphaned and abandoned children, or children that for various reasons find themselves in social protection centers and do not benefit from any such protection. These mentally and physically healthy children, due to their presence in these centers, are vulnerable, and we can diagnose them with a special sort of disease (‘social centralization complex’) because they suffer psychologically from their abandonment, their presence in these centers and the absence of adoptive chances. Regardless of the quality of the services offered in said placement centers, this mental complex remains, which creates a weak point with a profound impact on the rest of the lives of the respective children. To overcome their reality, children rebel against everything that surrounds them, and if they can conceal reality, then they do so by any means necessary. Due to the facts that these children do not have a strong educational base and that it is difficult to compensate for their lack of a familial atmosphere, the impact of the Information Revolution on them is strong, and trying to find solutions in order to avoid or correct the negative effects in various personal areas is a necessity.