Information systems are extremely important are and are being used widely in most of the organizations in today’s world. They help in automating processes and making business operations much faster and efficient. They are also being used in social media. These platforms are being used and accessed by the consumers including the children. Children below the age of 14 use social media like Facebook, twitter, instagram and that in turn have adverse effects on their way of thinking and the society (Winpenny, Marteau and Nolte 2013).
Children below the age of 14 use social sites like Facebook are victimized in a number of ways. Firstly, they do not have the consent of their parents to open a Facebook profile and they end up being stalked by other Facebook users (Boyd 2014). They often upload their pictures on Facebook or other sites and those pictures are illegally downloaded and misused even without the knowledge of the children (Laurini 2014). Children are considered vulnerable and incompetent when it come sot usage of social media since the hackers often steal the personal data that the children upload on the social sites and misuse such data. Hackers can even breach the security of the home premises of the child by hacking the home network (Dijck 2013). This way they can monitor and stalk the child a well as the other activities that happen in the household premises, which in turn can traumatize the children upon discovery. Some of the ethical principles that the users of information systems should be aware of are: To be respectful towards others, treating everyone equally, keeping promise that has been made, respecting others Respect the property of others and being honest and truthful. Some of the basic human rights that the children are also entitled to are recognizing the dignity of the children, which even they have a right to have a right to have. Even they have right to liberty to live in their own way and deserve security for anything they post on social media. It is their freedom to choose the way they want to live and their privacy is their right. They should have freedom of thought, religion as well as conscience. They should also have right to express their opinions (Quinn 2015). The hackers also misuse the privacy of the information shared by the children from these mobile devices like their smartphones or computers. Kantianism states that our ethics are defined by us and we judge something as good or bad based on whether everyone around us are doing it. For example if everyone started breaking promises it would by no means start meaning that breaking promises is an ethically correct practice.
Many children often feel like expressing their views and seek guidance about a particular topic which they post on social media but hackers and other users often take advantage of that and misuse the information that are provided by the children (ACM SIGCAS 2018). For instance, recently some of the children form the junior team of NFL posted about the racism they face in the process of team selection for the school championships (Strasburger et al. 2013). Children often tend to be mentally traumatized or victimized by the different comments and reactions of negative feelings and defamation that are posted on their social networking profiles. This again is a drawback of the information system in the backend. There should be better algorithms that the software developers should come up with that should be able to filter the comments posted by random users on Facebook before making them actually live to the users (Rainer et al. 2013).
Consequentialism, which is an adverse social issue associated with information systems states are mainly about the consequences rather than the actions themselves. For example stealing is traditionally an ethically incorrect practice and same situation is related in this case. The stalkers or unauthorized users can use the publically available information for harassing or personal benefits. However, consequentialism states that it is not a bad practice, provided it is done for the good. What “good” exactly means here is again defined by utilitarianism (another kinds of consequentialism). Utilitarian theory states that when a large number of people can be benefited from stealing for from any other ethically incorrect practice, then the practice is no longer ethically incorrect. Rather it is a good deed for the society. For instance, when a country is starving during a famine, it is not ethically incorrect to steal food from a warehouse or storeroom full of food to distribute among the poor.
The young children often face legal issues related to disclosure of their personal information that they post on the social sites and breach of their privacy. The hackers often ask for ransom amounts of money, which is illegal. Children are unaware of the consequences of posting information on the social networking sites and in turn makes their own pictures and other information vulnerable to be accessed by the hackers. This in turn becomes a concern for the parents as well and should be addressed by the UK data protection act as well as the computers misuse act. The UK data protection act is designed for protection of personal data that the computers or even the systems of paper filings store. The protection directive of EU was enacted by this act. The algorithms to store data should be so designed so that more stringent data security policies are applied on the social profiles of the teenager and many features should be blocked that are inappropriate for the children to use on the sites. Presently the social networking sites are so designed such that the children have access to all the features of the social sites as the adults (Pearlson, Saunders and Galletta, 2016). It is also the fundamental human right of the children to use the social sites the way they want provided it is under the supervision of their parent. Any misuse of their innocent or ignorance by the hackers should be strictly dealt by the human rights acts, which says that the offenders shall be strictly punished in case of violating the human rights of the children. Children may also often post their own pictures in the internet of occasions such as visiting orphanages or old age homes in order to spread a noble message to everyone on the social media. They may share their own personal details for others to contact them in case others want to volunteer in any social activities for which the children have been selected as the point of contact by the schools or institutions. Hackers also often take advantage of their innocence, steal their pictures as well as personal details, and take advantage of their innocent. This is a strictly legally as well as ethically incorrect act and should be strictly dealt with (Duquenoy et al. 2005).
There are cultural issues that also need to be addressed. It has been reported in a recent study that most of the children who are addicted to social media such as Facebook or snap chat tend to be more self-conscious since they constantly keep comparing themselves to the better lifestyles of the celebrities who also keep posting on the social networking platforms (ACM Digital Library 2018). They tend to suffer from a negative complexity, which is unnecessary at such a young age, and their mind seems to be filled with negative thoughts which adversely affects the society and the culture that prevails in the homes (Ethical, legal and professional issues in computing 2018).
These professionals should mandatorily abide by the BSC code of conduct should implement encryption technologies in the social sites and more advanced filters in the sites so that not all contents that are visible to the adult users should be visible to the users who are less than 14 years of age. A rule should also be imposed regarding accessing the information on the social sites and posting contents that should be filtered in the back end depending upon if it is being uploaded by a child or an adult, before finally making it live on the sites (Stairs and Reynolds 2013).
The social issues can be taken care by keeping the parents as well as the other adult users of the social sites well informed about the negative impacts that the social media can have on their children. The governing bodies should conduct such awareness programs and campaigns regularly. This will help the parents know what their children actually do on the social sites and they will consider preventing their children from using the social media in a negative way (Mazurek and Wenstrup 2013). Regular surveys should be sent to the children regarding how social media can be used in a positive way and for learning purposes instead of showing advertisements on entertainment and games that children generally tend to get more attracted to. Back end developers should be more cautious about designing these social sites.
Conclusion:
Therefore, it can be concluded from the above report that even though information systems are extremely important in today’s world there are many disadvantages for it as well. Social media is extremely vulnerable for the children and even though they might have clear intensions and honest reasons at times, hackers often target their innocence using the advanced hacking tools. This must be strictly addressed by the government and parents should be careful in monitoring the activities of their children to ensure a safer environment for them.
References:
ACM Digital Library, A. (2018). Journal on computing and cultural heritage. [online] (1556-4711). Available at: https://ezproxy.mdx.ac.uk/login?url=https://dl.a [Accessed 23 Oct. 2018].
ACM SIGCAS. (2018). Association for Computing Machinery, [online] (2167-3055). Available at: https://ezproxy.mdx.ac.uk/login?url=https://dl.a [Accessed 23 Oct. 2018].
Boyd, D., 2014. It’s complicated: The social lives of networked teens. Yale University Press.
Duquenoy P., Jones S., Rahanu H., Diaper D.(2005). Social, Legal and Professional Issues of Computing [Ebook].
Ethical, legal and professional issues in computing. (2018). [ebook] London: Thomson. Available at: https://mdx.rl.talis.com/items/B8F6F851-4696-F5C8-F9A0-E52FC1FED663.html [Accessed 23 Oct. 2018].
Laurini, R., 2014. Information systems for urban planning: a hypermedia cooperative approach. CRC Press.
Mazurek, M.O. and Wenstrup, C., 2013. Television, video game and social media use among children with ASD and typically developing siblings. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 43(6), pp.1258-1271.
Pearlson, K.E., Saunders, C.S. and Galletta, D.F., 2016. Managing and Using Information Systems, Binder Ready Version: A Strategic Approach. John Wiley & Sons.
Quinn, M. (2015). Ethics for the information age. 6th ed. [ebook] Pearson. Available at: https://mdx.rl.talis.com/items/FB44ED82-72A9-02AD-BA8C-D1A0737DFACE.html [Accessed 23 Oct. 2018].
Rainer, R.K., Cegielski, C.G., Splettstoesser-Hogeterp, I. and Sanchez-Rodriguez, C., 2013. Introduction to information systems. John Wiley & Sons.
Stair, R. and Reynolds, G., 2013. Principles of information systems. Cengage Learning.
Strasburger, V.C., Hogan, M.J., Mulligan, D.A., Ameenuddin, N., Christakis, D.A., Cross, C., Fagbuyi, D.B., Hill, D.L., Levine, A.E., McCarthy, C. and Moreno, M.A., 2013. Children, adolescents, and the media. Pediatrics, 132(5), pp.958-961.
Winpenny, E.M., Marteau, T.M. and Nolte, E., 2013. Exposure of children and adolescents to alcohol marketing on social media websites., 49(2), pp.154-159.
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