Monday | 7 October 2024 | Reg No- 06
বাংলা
   
Monday | 7 October 2024 | Epaper

Virtual media: The invisible guardian and mentor

Published : Tuesday, 7 November, 2017 at 12:00 AM  Count : 254
Ahmed Tahsin Shams
Bangladesh has cut a good figure in adopting digital tools in daily lives. Yet, many parents of earlier generation consider high-techs, like: 'smart' phone, electronic notebook, laptops, technical gadgets, and above all internet, as 'Satan's Box'. Therefore, it is perceived even in 2017 in Dhaka: the capital, 2 out of 20 students are not allowed to use Facebook in their private space, and 5 out of 20 students face restrictions of time, or space, or both in using personal electronic devices: notebook, 'smart' phones, or laptop. Undoubtedly, such a notion is dragging them backwards, and this bulk gap can hardly be minimized in their future competitive job lives.
Today's kids, especially in the urban elite areas, find digital tools a piece of cake, and get acquainted with such tools at ease before they learn alphabets. Therefore, this skill stands as their privilege in their undergraduate academic lives when they perform multimedia presentation twice or thrice in each trimester, as well as in their professional lives when they work in corporate companies, NGOs, journalism, or teaching profession.
Just because some archetype parental prejudices of considering 'internet' as 'Satan's Box', many kids, though come out of high school with flying colours, face bars after bars in their undergraduate academic presentations, assignments, and later in their job lives -- which make them feel unfit in today's workplace, thereby they fall victim to depression as many find virtual technical tools tough to get used to at aged stages.
Let's peep into the virtual world for a while to have a glimpse of its blessings in disguise: its contribution towards students as well as professionals. Students who are dealing with history, many parents might argue, can dive into the books available and be 'learned'; but when it comes to history, there comes a question: whose narrative the history is. Books are not out of prejudices. A book represents the author's narrative and most of the books in Bangladesh are published without references and sources of information.
Now, a student who is dependent on internet, is fortunate to have the vast universe at his/her doorstep. One can  watch YouTube video lectures of international intellectuals and professors and thus get acquainted with multiple and diverse perspectives. Research papers published in journals of esteemed universities are not that much available in the local book market. But, many such research works are available in PDF form, in websites of research institutes. A student thereby can choose which narrative he/she wishes to stick on, or can live with multiple narratives, thereby can argue and question singular or partial narratives. Now is that possible without internet in this age when a group of people are perfectly utilizing internet as their career advantage?
The fact to be specific is parents who are against of students using internet are paralyzing their upcoming days only due to the fear of porn-sites, or getting involved in relationship at an early age. Now the question to the parents is: Do you want to shut the window in fear of little dusts which will be a bar for the sunlight to get in?
Restricting internet cannot be a way of keeping children away from porn-sites or love-affairs. Rather, such parents are keeping the kids away from the sunlight which is about to enlighten their future days. A knife can be used to kill, it doesn't mean from today you won't keep knife at home and you will avoid fruits in your food-life!
In professional life, many employees have to perform multimedia presentation using graph-chart in their slides with audio-visual tools in their business meetings held nationally and internationally. Those who are not used to surf internet to get desired 'knowledge' find elephant in the room and cloud in their horizon. On the other hand, the employee who is pretty good in surfing internet and presenting 'knowledge' as expected by the corporate clients advances high in his/her career in no time.
The reason of this difference is more ideological than economical. Nowadays, each university has their computer laboratories, yet those students who faced above mentioned restriction are seen to be inefficient and callous in using internet for knowledge purpose. Thereby, they toil and moil over simplest problems of their academic life.
Many parents consider Facebook as evil as today's youth spend majority of their day time inside Facebook wall! But parents might not know that their children might be participating in a social protest against injustice through Facebook pages or groups, or might be reading and sharing an international significant news in walls. One news shared in Facebook wall is read by thousands within a minute which is not even read by 100 people in that news website. Facebook is a separate entity: a world that connects all within a blink, and rules over the 'real' world people live in. Discarding oneself from Facebook creates disruption in communication in today's world.
Virtual media is providing texts, videos, audiobooks of academic texts, news published 50 years ago, which help students and researchers in short period. International libraries provide access virtually, even which book is available in which bookstore or library one can know within a click! Now, only for a few drawbacks there is no logic to cut off the head due to headache!  

The writer is Lecturer, Department of English Language and Literature (ELL), Notre Dame University Bangladesh (NDUB), and Editorial Assistant,
The Daily Observer






LATEST NEWS
MOST READ
Also read
God's oppressed children
Listening to Joy - the civilized trailblazer
Why has Latin America turned away from the left?
Safeguarding banking services growth in Bangladesh
Time for an inclusive quality education
Erdogan subjected Turkey to a year of cynical doublespeak
A tale of two valleys
The economists who stole Christmas
Editor : Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury
Published by the Editor on behalf of the Observer Ltd. from Globe Printers, 24/A, New Eskaton Road, Ramna, Dhaka.
Editorial, News and Commercial Offices : Aziz Bhaban (2nd floor), 93, Motijheel C/A, Dhaka-1000.
Phone: PABX- 41053001-06; Online: 41053014; Advertisement: 41053012.
E-mail: info©dailyobserverbd.com, news©dailyobserverbd.com, advertisement©dailyobserverbd.com, For Online Edition: mailobserverbd©gmail.com
🔝