The Sofia City Library hosted an international conference subjected Children in the Digital Era. The University of Library Studies and Information Technologies (ULSIT) was the organizer of the event under the auspices of EU Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society Mariya Gabriel, as well as of the National Commission for UNESCO. The conference tackled challenges, related to the global network that today’s society faces. Children are one of the most vulnerable groups of digital users due to the early age of their first collision with the Internet. The kids create their own profiles in social networks and meet all kinds of people. They often establish friendships and relations sometimes prior to comprehending the real intentions and faces of those people. Thus they gradually begin to live in their own digital world, where they can share a lot of personal information without knowing what could happen with it. This may result in frauds and abuse. A growing number of games emerging even threaten directly the life of the participants – for instance, the Blue Whale game, aiming at the overcoming of different extreme challenges in the course of 50 days, filming it all. That is why stricter control on behalf of parents is necessary and more frequent conversation with the kids. Thus any problem would be solved inside the family and not through the advice of strangers.

Cybersecurity was an accent of one of the conference’s panels. Prof. in Law of Information and Communication Technologies Lawyer Georgi Dimitrov gives us more details on why the subject has to be a major part of the curriculum. In his words it is a totally new type of knowledge that needs preparation both in terms of technology and ethics. The professor paid attention to the different types of risks, hidden in the digital era:

“At the moment we all use the Internet and social networks. When we talk about the sphere of social communication there are certain threats, but when we discuss the usage of technologies in spheres where the state has its interests, then perhaps a system is necessary for the protection our rights and interests. It might turn out at one point that technologies have taken over business and governmental activities, making the state dependent on them. The major issue raised here - we don’t know what the knowledge and skills of business people should be in terms of technologies, also what skills should state clerks have, if they provide digital administrative services… to say nothing on those providing services in the sphere of healthcare. All of a sudden knowledge and skills from the sphere of self-awareness appear to be irreplaceable and the state economy cannot function without them. That is why Cybersecurity is obligatory for any discipline at any university, as it teaches us to secure our communication – for instance the measures that a company should take, in order to protect its employees’ personal data.”

The constant emerging of new technologies in our life leads to market saturation, but it’s not the same with people’s mind. Despite the fact that they have recently bought a new smartphone they decide that it is not needed anymore and rush to buy a new one. The story repeats every six months. This type of person can be called technology-dependent, which has all chances to turn into the new epidemics of the society. Is it already too late to protect our children?

English version: Zhivko Stanchev