Minors are the First Victims of the New Digital Universe in which We Live

According to the numbers given by Unicef on February 6, over 175,000 children go online for the first time every day – one child every half-second. One in every three internet users is a child.

The dangers of the digital world have already been pointed out by the sovereign pontiff: “The accumulation of constant novelties exalts a superficiality which pulls us in one direction,” wrote Francis in his encyclical Laudato Sí. 

During a congress in October of 2017 at the Gregorian University in Rome, the pope spoke of Internet’s “800 million young users” “in danger of becoming victims of sextortion, sexting, cyberbullying, and harassment”. 

The pope has also recalled many times that he believes it necessary to develop an interdisciplinary approach that can set the context for a legal evolution capable of guaranteeing “the protection of young people, their healthy growth, their joy and their hope”.

Rather than take an "interdisciplinary approach," pastors at Society of St. Pius X chapels routinely recommend to parents that unfettered access to the internet by their children should not be permitted - and in most cases, can be a gravely sinful act of neglect on their part. There are a myriad tools to block restricted content, social media sites, and more on the family computer, which should always be visible in a family room. Further, this computer's access to the Internet should only be turned on by parents at appropriate times, when they are available to monitor their family's activities.