Scourge of Society

In Pakistan, there was a time, some years back, when people used to rent Video Cassette Recorders (VCRs) from the movie shops. They carried it through to their homes to watch Indian or English movies. People, when on the way to their homes, looked embarrassed and shameful, and they always tried to do this chore stealthily. Nowadays, same look can be seen on the faces of people when they get out of Internet cafes.

We have once again made a technology a curse. Net cafes aren’t promoting the internet. They are not facilitating the benefits of web. They are not providing a suitable place for research and information dissemination. They are not the joints for students to enhance their information and polish their skills. They aren’t the place for the workers to search work online or earn any money. Internet shops are not even providing the means to enjoy a healthy and relaxed entertainment.

The net cafes have become the den of pornography. You will find all the net cafes jam-packed. The amazing thing is that, even if the internet connection is down, people seem to not notice this at all, and you will find sitting them in their covered cabins, eyes glued to the screens. In a recent chat with a net cafe owner in my city, I found that many of net cafe customers don’t know what the heck Google is. They don’t have an email account or can’t differentiate Yahoo from MSN. But they use to sit in the net cafe cabin for two or three hours daily. They just know where to click to reach to the shared folder which contains the pornographic movies. The net cafe admins daily update this shared folder.

Net cafe owners, specially put obscene and pornographic pictures and movies on the computers. It’s a very lucrative business for them. They don’t have to have a net connection to run a net cafe. Some years back there was very tragic event, in which some pornographic video clips of students were made public. That was just the tip of the iceberg. Indian cable channels plus the un-checked net cafes are ruining our society.


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