Though, the revolution in the field of information technology has made the life of people easier and convenient to contact each other but it has also some negative aspects. The mobile text messaging mania is one of them, as it is badly affecting the studies and health of youth.
It is observed that night and economical SMS packages provided by mobile companies are proven harmful, as youngsters are not getting a proper sleep, spending the whole night sharing messages with their friends. “The advent of mobile phones coupled with low-priced SMS packages has provided an easier and cheaper source of communication but, unfortunately, youth is not utilising this facility in good way,” said Professor Tahir Mahmood.
He said text messaging was also affecting the writing skills and general attitude of youth. “I know a number of my students who used to write text messaging language in their college assignments, which is a serious issue,” he added. Maryam Naz, a high school teacher, said the SMS mania had adverse effects on writing and general speech abilities. “Students lack of attention to proper grammar transfers to their writing.” Maryam said, “When a student uses U frequently, he reaches a saturation point where he no longer notice U lingo because he is used to seeing it. This has become a problem in everyday usage because the grammar level of students has declined dramatically.” It is also observed that the SMS are often shared by majority of youngsters, mimicking and ridiculing national poets, politicians and prominent figures from showbiz.
Its reality that cellular companies all over the world give special discount rate offers during off peak hours when traffic is low, but the incentives in Pakistan, it seems, are too much. Every cellular company is offering multiple packages at night timings and also on weekend, which are also spoiling the character of students. Everyone knows the reality of night mobile packages in Pakistan. There is a trend developed among the young generation to talk with opposite gender (boyfriends or girlfriends) via night packages, which was obviously developed by the cellular companies. It is also observed that students remain busy on mobile phones whole night as the timings of these packages usually starts after midnight. Here one thing is very important that the advertisements of late night packages of different companies are very attractive to students and promoting girlfriend/boyfriend culture in Pakistan , which is against the native values.
A physician from local hospital, while talking to Pakistan Today, said, “Late night packages are ruining the moral fibre of students as first they start to talk with opposite sex on various matters but they do not have anything new after a few days of contact.
Muhammad Faheem, a physiatrist, said late night packages were responsible for many mental and physical diseases among students. “Sleepless nights are very unhealthy for a human body and this may cause serious mental disorder among students if they keep using late night calling packages”.
Some citizens also shared their views on the sensitive issue and gave various suggestions for parents to control their children from the harmful affects of mobile phone packages. They said first of all, one of the important things is that parents should always keep their children busy in healthy activities. When they are free after study, they should be provided facilities for healthy leisure activities like different sports, family parties, gatherings and outdoor recreation. Parents should set the schedule of their children in such a way that have lots of leisure activities with studies. When students are involved in positive actions they obviously do not have time to waste in futile exercise of love on cell phones. Parents should keep an eye on their children to monitor their activities on mobile phones. This does need an inspector-like attitude and friendly check on contacts, received calls and text messages can do the job. According to a media reports, Pakistanis are now sending over 20 billion messages per year.
And who is going to decide what the "moral fiber" is?
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